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A WONDER 
BOOK 


POR 


Girls and Boys 


Nathaniel Hawthorne 


CHICAGO 


W. B. CONKEY COMPANY 


PUBLISHERS 


'< 0 •' ''O 


39082 


Library of Conen 



"'wo Copies Received 

AUG 27 1900 

Copyright ontry 

Uuj. /3, i j&o 

n. U, l£/ 7>S~ 

second copv. 

Deliver**! to 

OROtR DIVISION, 

.SEP 1 1900 



Copyright, 1900, by W. B. Conkey Company. 


73980 


CONTENTS 


Tanglewood Porch. 

Introductory to “The Gorgon’s Head.’’. . 

• The Gorgon’s Head 

Tanglewood Porch. 

After the Story 


Shadow Brook. 

Introductory to “The Golden Touch” 

The Golden Touch 

Shadow Brook. 

After the Story 


page. 

• • 7 
.. 15 

. . 55 

.. 58 
.. 63 

. . 91 


/ 


Tanglewood Playroom. 

Introductory to “The Paradise of Children”. . 95 
The Paradise of Children 100 


Tanglewood Playroom. 

After the Story 127 

Tanglewood Fireside. 

Introductory to “The Three Golden Apples”. . 130 
The Three Golden Apples 138 


Tanglewood Fireside. 

After the Story 171 

The Hillside . 

Introductory to “The Miraculous Pitcher”. .175 
The Miraculous Pitcher 179 


The Wonder Book. 


3 


4 CONTENTS. 

FAOE. 


The Hillside. 

After the Story 21 1 

Bald Summit. 

Introductory to “The Chimera” 213 

The Chimera 217 

Bald Summit. 

After the Story 254 


PREFACE. 


The author has long been of opinion that 
many of the classical myths were capable of 
being rendered into very capital reading for 
children. In the little volume here offered to 
the public he has worked up half a dozen of 
them with this end in view. A great freedom 
of treatment was necessary to his plan, but it 
will be observed by everyone who attempts to 
render these legends malleable in his intel- 
lectual furnace that they are marvelously inde- 
pendent of all temporary modes and circum- 
stances. They remain essentially the same 
after changes that would affect the identity of 
almost anything else. 

He does not, therefore, plead guilty to a 
sacrilege in having sometimes shaped anew, 
as his fancy dictated, the forms that have been 
hallowed by an antiquity of two or three thou- 
sand years. No epoch of time can claim a copy- 
right in these immortal fables. They seem 
never to have been made, and certainly, so 
long as man exists, they can never perish, but 
5 


6 


PREFACE. 


by their indestructibility itself they are legiti- 
mate subjects for every age to clothe with its 
own garniture of manners and sentiment and 
to imbue with its own morality. In the present 
version they may have lost much of their clas- 
sical aspect (or, at all events, the author has 
not been careful to preserve it), and have, 
perhaps, assumed a Gothic or romantic guise. 

In performing this pleasant task — for it has 
been really a task fit for hot weather, and one 
of the most agreeable, of a literary kind, which 
he ever undertook — the author has not always 
thought it necessary to write downward in 
order to meet the comprehension of children. 
He has generally suffered the theme to soar 
whenever such was its tendency, and when he 
himself was buoyant enough to follow without 
an effort. Children possess an unestimated sen- 
sibility to whatever is deep or high in imagina- 
tion or feeling, so long as it is simple likewise. 
It is only the artificial and the complex that 
bewilders them. 

Lenox, July 15, 1851. 


A WONDER BOOK. 


TANGLEWOOD PORCH. 

INTRODUCTORY TO “THE GORGON’S HEAD." 

Beneath the porch of the country-seat called 
Tanglewood one fine autumnal morning was 
assembled a merry party of little folks with a 
tall youth in the midst of them. They had 
planned a nutting expedition, and were im- 
patiently waiting for the mists to roll up the 
hillslopes and for the sun to pour the warmth 
of the Indian summer over the fields and pas- 
tures and into the nooks of the many-colored 
woods. There was the prospect of as fine a 
day as ever gladdened the aspect of this beau- 
tiful and comfortable world. As yet, how- 
ever, the morning mists filled up the whole 
length and breadth of the valley above which, 
on a gently sloping eminence, the mansion 
stood. 

This body of white vapor extended to within 
less than a hundred yards of the house. It 

7 


8 


A WONDER BOOK. 


completely hid everything beyond that dis- 
tance, except a few ruddy or yellow treetops 
which here and there emerged and were glo- 
rified by the early sunshine, as was likewise 
the broad surface of the mist. Four or five 
miles off to the southward rose the summit of 
Monument Mountain, and seemed to be floating 
on a cloud. Some fifteen miles farther away, 
in the same direction, appeared the loftier 
Dome of Taconic, looking blue and indistinct, 
and hardly so substantial as the vapory sea 
that almost rolled over it. The nearer hills 
which bordered the valley were half sub- 
merged, and were speckled with little cloud- 
wreaths all the way to their tops. On the 
whole, there was so much cloud and so little 
solid earth that it had the effect of a vision. 

The children above mentioned, being as full 
of life as they could hold, l^ept overflowing 
from the porch of Tanglewood and scamper- 
ing along the gravel walk or rushing across the 
dewy herbage of the lawn. I can hardly tell 
how many of these small people there were — 
not less than nine or ten, however, nor more 
than a dozen, of all sorts, sizes, and ages, 
whether girls or boys. They were brothers, 
sisters, and cousins, together with a few of 
their young acquaintances, who had been 


A WONDER BOOK. 


9 


invited by Mr. and Mrs. Pringle to spend some 
of this delightful weather with their own chil- 
dren at Tanglewood. I am afraid to tell you 
their names, or even to give them any names 
which other children have ever been called by, 
because, to my certain knowledge, authors 
sometimes get themselves into great trouble by 
accidentally giving the names of real persons 
to the characters in their books. For this rea- 
son I mean to call them Primrose, Periwinkle, 
Sweet Fern, Dandelion, Blue Eye, Clover, 
Huckleberry, Cowslip, Squash-blossom, Milk- 
weed, Plantain, and Buttercup, although, to 
be sure, such titles might better suit a group 
of fairies than a company of earthly children. 

It is not to be supposed that these little 
folks were to be permitted by their careful 
fathers and mothers, uncles, aunts, or grand- 
parents to stray abroad into the woods and fields 
without the guardianship of some particularly 
grave and elderly person. Oh, no, indeed! 
In the first sentence of my book you will recol- 
lect that I spoke of a tall youth standing in the 
midst of the children. His name— and I shall 
let you know his real name, because he con- 
siders it a great honor to have told the stories 
that are here to be printed — his name was 
Eustace Bright. He was a student at Williams 

2 Wonder Book 


10 


A WONDER BOOK. 


College, and had reached, I think, at this period 
the venerable age of eighteen years, so that 
he felt quite like a grandfather toward Peri- 
winkle, Dandelion, Huckleberry, Squash-blos- 
som, Milkweed, and the rest, who were only 
half or a third as venerable as he. A trouble 
in his eyesight (such as many students think 
it necessary to have, nowadays, in order to 
prove their diligence at their books) had kept 
him from college a week or two after the 
beginning of the term. But, for my part, I 
have seldom met with a pair of eyes that looked 
as if they could see farther or better than those 
of Eustace Bright. 

This learned student was slender and rather 
pale, as all Yankee students are, but yet of a 
healthy aspect, and as light and active as if he 
had wing to his shoes. By the bye, being much 
addicted to wading through streamlets and 
across meadows, he had put on cowhide boots 
for the expedition. He wore a linen blouse, 
a cloth cap, and a pair of green spectacles, 
which he had assumed probably less for the 
preservation of his eyes than for the dignity 
that they imparted to his countenance. In 
either case, however, he might as well have 
let them alone, for Huckleberry, a mischiev- 
ous little elf, crept behind Eustace as he sat 


A WONDER BOOK. 


n 


on the steps of the porch, snatched the spec- 
tacles from his nose, and clapped them on her 
own ; and as the student forgot to take them 
back, they fell off into the grass and lay there 
till the next spring. 

Now, Eustace Bright, you must know, had 
won great fame among the children as a nar- 
rator of wonderful stories; and though he 
sometimes pretended to be annoyed when they 
teased him for more and more, and always for 
more, yet I really d^ubt whether he liked any- 
thing quite so well as to tell them. You might 
have seen his eyes twinkle, therefore, when 
Clover, Sweet Fern, Cowslip, Buttercup, and 
most of their playmates besought him to relate 
one of his stories while they were waiting for 
the mist to clear up. 

“Yes, Cousin Eustace,” said Primrose, who 
was a bright girl of twelve with laughing eyes 
and a nose that turned up a little, “the morn- 
ing is certainly the best time for the stories 
with which you so pften tire out our patience. 
We shall be in less danger of hurting your 
feelings by falling asleep at the most interest- 
ing points — as little Cowslip and I did last 
night. ” 

“Naughty Primrose!” cried Cowslip, a child, 
of six years old; “I did not fall asleep, and I 


12 


A WONDER BOOK. 


only shut my eyes so as to see a picture of what 
Cousin Eustace was telling about. His stories 
are good to hear at night, because we can 
dream about them asleep; and good in the 
morning, too, because then we can dream about 
them awake. So I hope he will tell us one 
this very minute. ” 

“Thank you, my little Cowslip,” said Eus- 
tace; “certainly you shall have the best story 
I can think of, if it were only for defending me 
so well from that naughty Primrose. But, 
children, I have already told you so many fairy 
tales that I doubt whether there is a single one 
which you have not heard at least twice over. 
I am afraid you will fall asleep in reality if I 
repeat any of them again.” 

“No, no, no!” cried Blue Eye, Periwinkle, 
Plantain, and half a dozen others. “We like a 
story all the better for having heard it two or 
three times before.” 

And it is a truth as regards children that a 
story seems- Often to deepen its mark in their 
interest, not merely by two or three, but by 
numberless, repetitions. But Eustace Bright 
in the exuberaSee^pf his resources, scorned to 
avail himself of ail advantage which an older 
story-teller would have-been glad to grasp at. 

“It would be a great pity,” said he, “if a 


A WONDER BOOK. 


IS 


man of my learning, to say nothing of original 
fancy, could not find a new story every day, 
year in and year out, for children such as you. 
I will tell you one of the nursery tales that 
were made for the amusement of our great old 
grandmother, the Earth, when she was a child 
in frock and pinafore. There are a hundred 
such, and it is a wonder to me that they have 
not long ago been put into picture-books for 
little girls and boys. But, instead of that, old 
gray-bearded grandsires pore over them in 
musty volumes of Greek, and puzzle themselves 
with trying to find out when and how and for 
what they were made. ’ ’ 

“Well, well, well, well, Cousin Eustace!” 
cried all the children at once; “talk no more 
about your stories, but begin.” 

“Sit down, then, every soul of you,” said 
Eustace Bright, “and be all as still as so many 
mice. At the slightest interruption, whether 
from great, naughty Primrose, little Dande- 
lion, or any other, I shall bite the story short 
off between my teeth and swallow the untold 
part. But, in the first place, do any of you 
know what a Gorgon is?” 

“I do,” said Primrose. 

“Then hold your tongue,” rejoined Eustace, 
who had rather she would have known nothing 


A WONDER BOOK. 


14 

about the matter. “Hold all your tongues, 
and I shall tell you a sweet pretty story of a 
Gorgon’s head. ’’ 

And so he did, as you may begin to read on 
the next page. Working up his sophomorical 
erudition with a great deal of tact, and incur- 
ring great obligations to Professor Anthon, he 
nevertheless disregarded all classical author- 
ities whenever the vagrant audacity of his 
imagination impelled him to do so. 


A WONDER BOOK. 


15 


THE GORGON’S HEAD. 

Perseus was the son of Danae, who was the 
daughter of a king, and when Perseus was a 
very little boy some wicked people put his 
mother and himself into a chest and set them 
afloat upon the sea. The wind blew freshly 
and drove the chest away from the shore, and 
the uneasy billows tossed it up and down, while 
Danae clasped her child closely to her bosom, 
and dreaded that some big wave would dash its 
foamy crest over them both. The chest sailed 
on, however, and neither sank nor was upset, 
until, when night was coming, it floated so near 
an island that it got entangled in a fisherman’s 
nets and was drawn out high and dry upon the 
sand. The island was called Seriphus, and it 
was reigned over by King Polydectes, who 
happened to be the fisherman’s brother. 

This fisherman, I am glad to tell you, was an 
exceedingly humane and upright man. He 
showed great kindness to Danae and her little 
boy, and continued to befriend them until 
Perseus had grown to be a handsome youth, 


16 


A WONDER BOOK. 


very strong and active and skillful in the use 
of arms. Long before this time King Poly- 
dectes had seen the two strangers — the mother 
and her child — who had come to his dominions 
in a floating chest. As he was not good and 
kind like his brother the fisherman, but ex- 
tremely wicked, he resolved to send Perseus on 
a dangerous enterprise on which he would 
probably be killed, and then to do some great 
mischief to Danae herself. So this bad-hearted 
king spent a long while in considering what 
was the most dangerous thing that a young 
man could possibly undertake to perform. 
At last, having hit upon an enterprise that 
promised to turn out as fatally as he desired, 
he sent for the youthful Perseus. 

The young man came to the palace, and 
found the king sitting upon his throne. 

“Perseus,” said King Polydectes, smiling 
craftily upon him, “you are grown up a fine 
young man. You and your good mother have 
received a great deal of kindness from myself, 
as well as from my worthy brother the fisher- 
man, and I suppose you would not be sorry 
to repay some of it. ’ ’ 

“Please, your majesty,” answered Perseus, 
“I would willingly risk my life to do so.” 

“Well, then,” continued the king, still with 


A WONDER BOOK. 


17 


a cunning smile on his lips, “I have a little 
adventure to propose to you; and, as you are 
a brave and enterprising youth, you will 
doubtless look upon it as a great piece of good 
luck to have so rare an opportunity of distin- 
guishing yourself. You must know, my good 
Perseus, I think of getting married to the 
beautiful Princess Hippodamia, and it is cus- 
tomary on these occasions to make the bride a 
present of some far-fetched and elegant curi- 
osity. I have been a little perplexed, I must 
honestly confess, where to obtain anything 
likely to please a princess of her exquisite 
taste. But this morning, I flatter myself, I 
have thought of precisely the article. ’ ’ 

“And can I assist your majesty in obtaining" 
it?” cried Perseus eagerly. 

“You can, if you are as brave a youth as I 
believe you to be,’’ replied King Polydectes, 
with the utmost graciousness of manner. 
“The bridal gift which I have set my heart on 
presenting to the beautiful Hippodamia is the 
head of the Gorgon Medusa with the snaky 
locks, and I depend on you, my dear Perseus, 
to bring it to me. So, as I am anxious to settle 
affairs with the princess, the sooner you go in 
quest of the Gorgon the better I shall be 
pleased. ’ ’ 

2 


18 


A WONDER BOOK. 


“I will set out to-morrow morning,” an- 
swered Perseus. 

“Pray do so, my gallant youth,” rejoined the 
king. “And, Perseus, in cutting off the 
Gorgon’s head be careful to make a clean 
stroke, so as not to injure its appearance. 
You must bring it home in the very best con- 
dition in order to suit the exquisite taste of 
the beautiful Princess Hippodamia. ’ ’ 

Perseus left the palace, but was scarcely out 
of hearing before Polydectes burst into a laugh, 
being greatly amused, wicked king that he was, 
to find how readily the young man fell into 
the snare. The news quickly spread abroad 
that Perseus had undertaken to cut off the head 
of Medusa with the snaky locks. Everybody 
was rejoiced, for most of the inhabitants of 
the island were as wicked as the king himself, 
and would have liked nothing better than to 
see some enormous mischief happen to Danae 
and her son. The only good man in this unfor- 
tunate island of Seriphus appears to have been 
the fisherman. As Perseus walked along, 
therefore, the people pointed after him, and 
made mouths, and winked at one another, and 
ridiculed him as loudly as they dared. 

“Ho, ho!” cried they; “Medusa’s snakes 
will sting him soundly!” 


A WONDER BOOK. 


19 


Now, there were three Gorgons alive at 
that period, and they were the most strange 
and terrible monsters that had ever been seen 
since the world was made, or that have been 
seen in after days, or that are likely to be seen 
in all time to come. I hardly know what sort 
of creature or hobgoblin to call them. They 
were three sisters, and seemed to have borne 
some distant resemblance to women, but were 
really a very frightful and mischievous species 
of dragon. It is indeed difficult to imagine 
what hideous beings these three sisters were. 
Why, instead of locks of hair, if you can be- 
lieve me, they had each of them a hundred 
enormous snakes growing on their heads, all 
alive, twisting, wriggling, curling, and thrust- 
ing out their venomous tongues with forked 
stings at the end. The teeth of the Gorgons 
were terribly long tusks; their hands were 
made of brass and their bodies were all over 
scales, which, if not iron, were something as 
hard and impenetrable. They had wings, too, 
and exceedingly splendid ones, I can assure 
you, for every feather in them was pure, 
bright, glittering, burnished gold, and they 
looked very dazzling, no doubt, when the Gor- 
gons were flying about in the sunshine. 

But when people happened to catch a 


20 


A WONDER BOOK. 


glimpse of their glittering brightness aloft in 
the air, they seldom stopped to gaze, but ran 
and hid themselves as speedily as they could. 
You will think, perhaps, that they were afraid 
of being stung by the serpents that served 
the Gorgons instead of hair, or of having their 
heads bitten off by their ugly tusks, or of 
being torn all to pieces by their brazen claws. 
Well, to be sure, these were some of the dan- 
gers, but by no means the greatest nor the 
most difficult to avoid. For the worst thing 
about these abominable Gorgons was that if 
once a poor mortal fixed his eyes full upon one 
of their faces, he was certain that very instant 
to be changed from warm flesh and blood into 
cold and lifeless stone. 

Thus, as you will easily perceive, it was a 
very dangerous adventure that the wicked 
King Polydectes had contrived for this inno- 
cent young man. Perseus himself, when he 
had thought over the matter, could not help 
seeing that he had very little chance of com- 
ing safely through it, and that he was far more 
likely to become a stone image than to bring 
back the head of Medusa with the snaky locks. 
For, not to speak of other difficulties, there 
was one which it would have puzzled an older 
man than Perseus to get over. Not only must 


A WONDER BOOK. 


21 


he fight with and slay this golden-winged, 
iron-scaled, long-tusked, brazen-clawed, snaky- 
haired monster, but he must do it with his 
eyes shut, or at least without so much as a 
glance at the enemy with whom he was con- 
tending. Else, while his arm was lifted to 
strike, he would stiffen into stone, and stand 
with that uplifted arm for centuries, until time 
and the wind and weather should crumble 
him quite away. This would be a very sad 
thing to befall a young man who wanted to 
perform a great many brave deeds and to en- 
joy a great deal of happiness in this bright and 
beautiful world. 

So disconsolate did these thoughts make 
him that Perseus could not bear to tell his 
mother what he had undertaken to do. He 
therefore took his shield, girded on his sword, 
and crossed over from the island to the main- 
land, where he sat down in a solitary place 
and hardly refrained from shedding tears. 

But while he was in this sorrowful mood he 
heard a voice close beside him. 

“Perseus,” said the voice, “why are you 
sad?” 

He lifted his head from his hands, in which 
he had hidden it, and, behold! all alone as 
Perseus had supposed himself to be, there was 


22 


A WONDER BOOK. 


a stranger in the solitary place. It was a. 
brisk, intelligent, and remarkably shrewd-look- 
ing young man, with a cloak over his shoul- 
ders, an odd sort of cap on his head, a 
strangely twisted staff in his hand, and a short 
and very crooked sword hanging by his side. 
He was exceedingly light and active in his fig- 
ure, like a person much accustomed to gym- 
nastic exercises and well able to leap or run. 
Above all, the stranger had such a cheerful, 
knowing, and helpful aspect (though it was 
certainly a little mischievous into the bargain) 
that Perseus could not help feeling his spirits 
grow livelier as he gazed at him. Besides, 
being really a courageous youth, he felt 
greatly ashamed that anybody should have 
found him with tears in his eyes, like a timid 
little schoolboy, when, after all, there might be 
no occasion for despair. So Perseus wiped his 
eyes and answered the stranger pretty briskly, 
putting on as brave a look as he could. 

“I am not so very sad,” said he; ‘‘only 
thoughtful about an adventure that I have un- 
dertaken. ’ ’ 

“Oho!” answered the stranger. “Well, tell 
me all about it, and possibly I may be of ser- 
vice to you. I have helped a good many young 
men through adventures that looked difficult 


A WONDER BOOK. 


23 


enough beforehand. Perhaps you may have 
heard of me. I have more names than one, 
but the name of Quicksilver suits me as well 
as any other. Tell me what your trouble is, 
and we will talk the matter over and see what 
can be done. ” 

The stranger’s words and manner put Per- 
seus into quite a different mood from his fpr- 
mer one. He resolved to tell Quicksilver all 
his difficulties, since he could not easily be 
worse off than he already was, and very pos- 
sibly his new friend might give him some ad- 
vice that would turn out well in the end. So 
he let the stranger know, in few words, pre- 
cisely what the case was — how that King Poly- 
dectes wanted the head of Medusa with the 
snaky locks as a bridal gift for the beautiful 
Princess Hippodamia, and how that he had 
undertaken to get it for him, but was afraid of 
being turned into stone. 

“And that would be a great pity,” said 
Quicksilver, with his mischievous smile. 
“You would make a very handsome marble 
statue, it is true, and it would be a consider- 
able number of centuries before you crumbled 
away, but, on the whole, one would rather be 
a young man for a few years than a stone 
image for a great many.” 


24 


A WONDER BOOK. 


“Oh, far rather!” exclaimed Perseus, with 
the tears again standing in his eyes. “And, 
besides, what would my dear mother do if her 
beloved son were turned into a stone?” 

“Well, well! let us hope that the affair will 
not turn out so very badly, ’ ' replied Quick- 
silver in an encouraging tone. “I am the very 
person to help you, if anybody can. My sister 
and myself will do our utmost to bring you 
safe through the adventure, ugly as it now 
looks." 

“Your sister?” repeated Perseus. 

“Yes, my sister,” said the stranger. “She 
is very wise, I promise you ; and as for my- 
self, I generally have all my wits about me, 
such as they are. If you show yourself bold 
and cautious and follow our advice, you need 
not fear being a stone image yet a while. But, 
first of all you must polish your shield till you 
can see your face in it as distinctly as in a 
mirror. ” 

This seemed to Perseus rather an odd begin- 
ning of the adventure, for he thought it of far 
more consequence that the shield should be 
strong enough to defend him from the Gor- 
gons’ brazen claws than that it should be 
bright enough to show him the reflection of 
his face. However, concluding that Quick- 


A WONDER BOOK. 


25 


silver knew better than himself, he immedi- 
ately set to work and scrubbed the shield with 
so much diligence and good will that it very 
quickly shone like the moon at harvest-time. 
Quicksilver looked at it with a smile and 
nodded his approbation. Then, taking off his 
own short and crooked sword, he girded it 
about Perseus, instead of the one which he 
had before worn. 

“No sword but mine will answer your pur- 
pose,” observed he; “the blade has a most ex- 
cellent temper, and will cut through iron and 
brass as easily as through the slenderest twig. 
And now we will set out. The next thing is 
to find the Three Gray Women, who will tell 
us where to find the Nymphs. ” 

“The Three Gray Women!” cried Perseus, 
to whom this seemed only a new difficulty in 
the path of his adventure; “pray, who may 
the Three Gray Women be? I never heard of 
them before.” 

“They are three very strange old ladies, ” 
said Quicksilver, laughing. “They have but 
one eye among them, and only one tooth. 
Moreover, you must find them out by starlight 
or in the dusk of the evening, for they never 
show themselves by the light either of the sun 


or moon. 


26 


A WONDER BOOK. 


“But,” said Perseus, “why should I waste 
my time with these Three Gray Women? 
Would it not be better to set out at once in 
search of the terrible Gorgons?” 

“No, no,” answered his friend. “There are. 
other things to be done before you can find 
your way to the Gorgons. There is nothing 
for it but to hunt up these old ladies, and 
when we meet with them you may be sure 
that the Gorgons are not a great way off. 
Come, let us be stirring. ’ ’ 

Perseus by this time felt so much confidence 
in his companion’s sagacity that he made no 
more objections, and professed himself ready 
to begin the adventure immediately. They 
accordingly set out and walked at a pretty 
brisk pace ; so brisk, indeed, thatPerseus found 
it rather difficult to keep up with his nimble 
friend Quicksilver. To say the truth, he had 
a singular idea that Quicksilver was furnished 
with a pair of winged shoes, which of course 
helped him along marvelously. And then, 
too, when Perseus looked sideways at him out 
of the corner of his e}^e, he seemed to see 
wings on the side of his head, although, if he 
turned a full gaze, there were no such things 
to be perceived, but only an odd kind of cap. 
But, at all events, the twisted staff was evi- 


A WONDER BOOK. 


27 


dently a great convenience to Quicksilver, 
and enabled him to proceed so fast that Per- 
seus, though a remarkably active young man, 
began to be out of breath. 

“Here!” cried Quicksilver at last — for he 
knew well enough, rogue that he was, how 
hard Perseus found it to keep pace with him 
— “take you the staff, for 3 7 ou need it a great 
deal more than I. Are there no better 
walkers than yourself in the island of Seri- 
phus: ’ 

“I could walk pretty well,” said Perseus, 
glancing shyly at his companion’s feet, “if I 
had only a pair of winged shoes.” 

“We must see about getting you a pair, ” 
answered Quicksilver. 

But the staff helped Perseus along so 
bravely that he no longer felt the slightest 
weariness. In fact, the stick seemed to be alive 
in his hand, and to lend some of its life to 
Perseus. He and Quicksilver now walked on- 
ward at their ease, talking very sociably to- 
gether, and Quicksilver told so many pleasant 
stories about his former adventures, and how 
well his wits had served him on various occa- 
sions, that Perseus began to think him a very 
wonderful person. He evidently knew the 
world, and nobody is so charming to a young 


28 


A WONDER BOOK. 


man as a friend who has that kind of knowl- 
edge. Perseus listened the more eagerly in 
the hope of brightening his own wits by what 
he heard. 

At last he happened to recollect that Quick- 
silver had spoken of a sister who was to lend 
her assistance in the adventure which they 
were now bound upon. 

“Where is she?” he inquired. “Shall we 
not meet her soon?” 

“All at the proper time.” said his compan- 
ion. “But this sister of mine, you must under- 
stand. is quite a different sort of character 
from myself. She is very grave and prudent, 
seldom smiles, never laughs, and makes it a 
rule not to utter a word unless she has some- 
thing particularly profound to say. Neither 
will she listen to any but the wisest conversa- 
tion. ” 

“Dear me!” ejaculated Perseus; “I shall be 
afraid to say a syllable. ’ ’ 

“She is a very accomplished person, I assure 
you,” continued Quicksilver, “and has all the 
arts and sciences at her fingers’ ends. In 
short, she is so immoderately wi^e that many 
people call her wisdom personified. But, to 
tell you the truth, she has hardly vivacity 
enough for my taste, and I think you would 


A WONDER BOOK. 


29 


scarcely find her so pleasant a traveling com- 
panion as myself. She has her good points, 
nevertheless, and you will find the benefit of 
them in your encounter with the Gorgons. ” 

By this time it had grown quite dusk. They 
were now come to a very wild and desert 
place, overgrown with shaggy bushes, and so 
silent and solitary that nobody seemed ever to 
have dwelt or journeyed there. All was waste 
and desolate in the gray twilight, which grew 
every moment more obscure. Perseus looked 
about him rather disconsolately, and asked 
Quicksilver whether they had a great deal 
farther to go. 

“Hist! hist!” whispered his companion. 
“Make no noise. This is just the time and 
place to meet the Three Gray Women. Be 
careful that they do not see you before you see 
them, for, though they have but a single eye 
among the three, it is as sharp-sighted as half 
a dozen common eyes. ’ ’ 

“But what must I do?” asked Perseus, “when 
we meet them?” 

Quicksilver explained to Perseus how the 
Three Gray Women managed with their one 
eye. They were in the habit, it seems, of 
changing it from one to another, as if it had 
been a pair of spectacles or — which would have 


30 


A WONDER BOOK. 


suited them better — a. quizzing-glass. When 
one of the three had kept the eye a certain 
time, she took it out of the socket and passed 
it to one of her sisters whose turn it might 
happen to be, and who immediately' clapped it 
into her own head and enjoyed a peep at the 
visible world. Thus it will easily be under- 
stood that only one of the Three Gray Women 
could see, while the other two were in utter 
darkness; and, moreover, at the instant when 
the eye was passing from hand to hand neither 
of the poor old ladies was able to see a wink. 
I have heard of a great many strange things 
in my day, and have witnessed not a few, but 
none, it seems to me, that can compare with 
the oddity of these Three Gray Women all 
peeping through a single eye. 

So thought Perseus likewise, and was so 
astonished that he almost fancied his com- 
panion was joking with him, and that there 
were no such old women in the world. 

“You will soon find whether I tell the truth 
or no,” observed Quicksilver. “Hark! hush! 
hist! hist! There they come, now!” 

Perseus looked earnestly through the dusk of 
the evening, and there, sure enough, at no 
great distance off, he descried the Three Gray 
Women. The light being so faint, he could 


A WONDER BOOK. 


31 


not well make out what sort of figures they 
were, only he discovered that they had long 
gray hair, and as they came nearer he saw that 
two of them had but the empty socket of an 
eye in the middle of their foreheads. But in 
the middle of the third sister’s forehead there 
was a very large, bright, and piercing eye, 
which sparkled like a great diamond in a ring ; 
and so penetrating did it seem to be that Per- 
seus could not help thinking it must possess the 
gift of seeing in the darkest midnight just as 
perfectly as at noonday. The sight of three 
persons’ eyes was melted and collected into that 
single one. 

Thus the three old dames got along about as 
comfortably, upon the whole, as if they could 
all see at once. She who chanced to have the 
eye in her forehead led the other two by the 
hands, peeping sharply about her all the while, 
insomuch that Perseus dreaded lest she should 
see right through the thick clump of bushes 
behind which he and Quicksilver had hidden 
themselves. My stars! it was positively ter- 
rible to be within reach of so very sharp an 
eye. 

But before they reached the clump of bushes 
one of the Three Gray Women spoke. 

“Sister! Sister Scarecrow!’’ cried she, “you 


32 


A WONDER BOOK. 


have had the eye long enough. It is my turn 
now!” 

‘‘Let me keep it a moment longer, Sister 
Nightmare, ’ ’ answered Scarecrow. ‘ ‘ I thought 
I had a glimpse of something behind that thick 
bush.” 

‘‘Well, and what of that?” retorted Night- 
mare peevishly. ‘‘Can't I see into a thick 
bush as easily as yourself? The eye is mine as 
well as yours, and I know the use of it as well 
as you, or maybe a little better. I insist upon 
taking a peep immediately. ” 

But here the third sister, whose name was 
Shakejoint, began to complain, and said that 
it was her turn to have the eye, and that Scare- 
crow and Nightmare wanted to keep it all to 
themselves. To end the dispute, old Dame 
Scarecrow took the eye out of her forehead and 
held it forth in her hand. 

‘‘Take it, one of you,” cried she, ‘‘and quit 
this foolish quarreling. For my part, I shall 
be glad of a little thick darkness. Take it 
quickly, however, or I must clap it into my 
own head again.” 

Accordingly, both Nightmare and Shake- 
joint stretched out their hands, groping eagerly 
to snatch the eye out of the hand of Scarecrow. 
But, being both alike blind, they could not 


A WONDER BOOK. 


33 


easily find where Scarecrow’s hand was; and 
Scarecrow, being now just as much in the dark 
as Shakejoint and Nightmare, could not at 
once meet either of their hands in order to put 
the eye into it. Thus (as you will see with 
half an eye, my wise little auditors) these good 
old dames had fallen into a strange perplexity. 
For, though the eye shone and glistened like a 
star as Scarecrow held it out, yet the Gray 
Women caught not the least glimpse of its 
light, and were, all three, in utter darkness 
from too impatient a desire to see. 

Quicksilver was so much tickled at beholding 
Shakejoint and Nightmare both groping for 
the eye, and each finding fault with Scarecrow 
and with one another, that he could scarcely 
help laughing aloud. 

“Now is your time!” he whispered to Per- 
seus. “Quick, quick! before they can clap the 
eye into either of their heads. Rush out upon 
the old ladies and snatch it from Scarecrow’s 
hand.” 

In an instant, while the Three Gray Women 
were still scolding each other, Perseus leaped 
from behind the clump of bushes and made 
himself master of the prize. The marvelous 
eye, as he held it in his hand, shone very 
brightly, and seemed to look up into his face 

3 Wonder Book 


34 


A WONDER BOOK. 


with a knowing air, and an expression as if it 
would have winked had it been provided with 
a pair of eyelids for that purpose. But the 
Gray Women knew nothing of what had hap- 
pened, and, each supposing that one of her sis- 
ters was in possession of the eye, they began 
their quarrel anew. At last, as Perseus did 
not wish to put these respectable dames to 
greater inconvenience than was really neces- 
sary, he thought it right to explain the matter. 

“My good ladies,” said he, “pray do not be 
angry with one another. If anybody is in 
fault, it is myself, for I have the honor to hold 
your very brilliant and excellent eye in my 
own hand. ” 

“You! you have our eye? And who are 
you?” screamed the Three Gray Women all in 
a breath, for they were terribly frightened, of 
course, at hearing a strange voice and discov- 
ering that their eyesight had got into the hands 
of they could not guess whom. “Oh, what 
shall we do, sisters? what shall we do? We 
are all in the dark! Give us our eye! Give us 
our one precious, solitary eye! You have two 
of your own! Give us our eye !” 

“Tell them,” whispered Quicksilver to Per- 
seus, “that they shall have back the eye as 
soon as they direct you where to find the 


A WONDER BOOK. 


35 


Nymphs who have the flying slippers, the 
magic wallet, and the helmet of darkness.” 

4 ‘My dear, good, admirable old ladies,” said 
Perseus, addressing the Gray Women, “there 
is no occasion for putting yourselves into such 
a fright. I am by no means a bad young man. 
You shall have back your eye, safe and sound 
and as bright as ever, the moment you tell me 
where to find the Nymphs.” 

“The Nymphs! Goodness me! sisters, what 
Nymphs does he mean?” screamed Scarecrow. 
“There are a great many Nymphs, people say 
— some that go a-hunting in the woods, and 
some that live inside of trees, and some that 
have a comfortable home in fountains of water. 
We know nothing at all about them. We are 
three unfortunate old souls that go wandering 
about in the dusk, and never had but one eye 
among us, and that one you have stolen away. 
Oh, give it back, good stranger! whoever you 
are, give it back!” 

All this while the Three Gray Women were 
groping with their outstretched hands and try- 
ing their utmost to get hold of Perseus, but he 
took good care to keep out of their reach. 

“My respectable dames,” said he — for his 
mother had taught him always to use the great- 
est civility — “I hold your eye fast in my hand, 


36 


A WONDER BOOK. 


and shall keep it safely for you until you please 
to tell me where to find these Nymphs — the 
Nymphs, I mean, who keep the enchanted wal- 
let, the flying slippers, and the — what is it? — 
the helmet of invisibility. ’ ’ 

“Mercy on us, sisters! what is the young 
man talking about?” exclaimed Scarecrow, 
Nightmare, and Shakejoint one to another, 
with great appearance of astonishment. “A 
pair of flying slippers, quoth he! His heels 
would quickly fly higher than his head if he 
were silly enough to put them on. And a 
helmet of invisibility! How could a helmet 
make him invisible unless it were big enough 
for him to hide under it? And an enchanted 
wallet ! What sort of a contrivance may that 
be, I wonder? No, no, good stranger! we can 
tell you nothing of these marvelous things. 
You have two eyes of your own, and we but a 
single one among us three. You can find out 
such wonders better than three blind old crea- 
ture like us.” 

Perseus, hearing them talk in this way, began 
really to think that the Gray Women knew 
nothing of the matter, and, as it grieved him 
to have put them to so much trouble, he was 
just on the point of restoring their eye and ask- 


A WONDER BOOK. 


37 


ing pardon for his rudeness in snatching it 
away. But Quicksilver caught his hand. 

“Don’t let them make a fool of you, ’’ said 
he. “These Three Gray Women are the only 
persons in the world that can tell you where to 
find the Nymphs, and unless you get that 
information you will never succeed in cutting 
off the head of Medusa with the snaky locks. 
Keep fast hold of the eye and all will go well.” 

As it turned out, Quicksilver was in the 
right. There are but few things that people 
prize so much as they do their eyesight, and 
the Gray Women valued their single eye as 
highly as if it had been half a dozen, which was 
the number they ought to have had. Finding 
that there was no other way of recovering it, 
they at last told Perseus what he wanted to 
know. No sooner had they done so than he 
immediately and with the utmost respect 
clapped the eye into the vacant socket in one 
of their foreheads, thanked them for their kind- 
ness, and bade them farewell. Before the 
young man was out of hearing, however, they 
had got into a new dispute because he hap- 
pened to have given the eye to Scarecrow, who 
had already taken her turn of it when their 
trouble with Perseus commenced. 

It is greatly to be feared that the Three 


38 


A WONDER BOOK. 


Gray Women were very much in the habit of 
disturbing their mutual harmony by bickerings 
of this sort, which was the more pity as they 
could not conveniently do without one another, 
and were evidently intended to be inseparable 
companions. As a general rule, I would advise 
all people, whether sisters or brothers, old or 
young, who chance to have but one eye among 
them, to cultivate forbearance, and not all 
insist upon peeping through it at once. 

Quicksilver and Perseus in the meantime 
were making the best of their way in quest of 
the Nymphs. The old dames had given them 
such particular directions that they were not 
long in finding them out. They proved to be 
very different persons from Nightmare, Shake- 
joint, and Scarecrow, for instead of being old 
they were young and beautiful, and instead of 
one eye among the sisterhood each Nymph had 
two exceedingly bright eyes of her own, with 
which she looked very kindly at Perseus. They 
seemed to be acquainted with Quicksilver, and 
when he told them the adventure which Per- 
seus had undertaken they made no difficulty 
about giving him the valuable articles that 
were in their custody. In the first place, they 
brought out what appeared to be a small purse, 
made of deerskin and curiously embroidered, 


A WONDER BOOK. 


39 


and bade him be sure and keep it safe. This 
was the magic wallet. The Nymphs next pro- 
duced a pair of shoes or slippers or sandals 
with a nice little pair of wings at the heel of 
each. 

“Put them on, Perseus,” said Quicksilver. 
“You will find yourself as light-heeled as 
you can desire for the remainder of our 
journey. ’ ’ 

So Perseus proceeded to put one of the slip- 
pers on, while he laid the other on the ground 
by his side. Unexpectedly, however, this other 
slipper spread its wings, fluttered up off the 
ground, and would probably have flown away 
if Quicksilver had not made a leap and luckily 
caught it in the air. 

‘ ‘ Be more careful, ’ ’ said he as he gave it back 
to Perseus. “It would frighten the birds up 
aloft if they should see a flying slipper amongst 
them. ” 

When Perseus had got on both of these won- 
derful slippers he was altogether too buoyant 
to tread on earth. Making a step or two, lo 
and behold! upward he popped into the air, 
high above the heads of Quicksilver and the 
Nymphs, and found it very difficult to clamber 
down again. Winged slippers and all such 
high-flying contrivances are seldom quite easy 


40 


A WONDER BOOK. 


to manage until one grows a little accustomed 
to them. Quicksilver laughed at his compan- 
ion’s involuntary activity, and told him that 
he must not be in so desperate a hurry, but 
must wait for the invisible helmSt. 

The good-natured Nymphs had the helmet 
with its dark tuft of waving plumes all in read- 
iness to put upon his head. And now there 
happened about as wonderful an incident as 
anything that I have yet told you. The 
instant before the helmet was put on, there 
stood Perseus, a beautiful young man with 
golden ringlets and rosy cheeks, the crooked 
sword by his side, and the brightly polished 
shield upon his arm — a figure that seemed all 
made up of courage, sprightliness, and glorious 
light. But when the helmet had descended 
over his white brow there was no longer any 
Perseus to be seen! Nothing but empty air! 
Even the helmet that covered him with its 
invisibility had vanished ! 

“Where are you, Perseus?’’ asked Quick- 
silver. 

“Why, here, to be sure!” answered Perseus, 
very quietly, although his voice seemed to come 
out of the transparent atmosphere. “Just 
where I was a moment ago. Don’t you see 
me?’’ 


A WONDER BOOK. 


41 


“No, indeed!” answered his friend. “You 
are hidden under the helmet. But if I cannot 
see you, neither can the Gorgons. Follow me, 
therefore, and we will try your dexterity in 
using the winged slippers.” 

With these words Quicksilver’s cap spread its 
wings, as if his head were about to fly away 
from his shoulders ; but his whole figure rose 
lightly into the air, and Perseus followed. 
By the time they had ascended a few hundred 
feet the young man began to feel what a 
delightful thing it was to leave the dull earth 
so far beneath him and to be able to flit about 
like a bird. 

It was now deep night. Perseus looked 
upward and saw the round, bright, silvery 
moon, and thought that he should desire noth- 
ing better than to soar up thither and spend 
his life there. Then he looked downward 
again and saw the earth, with its seas and 
lakes, and the silver courses of its rivers, and 
its snowy mountain-peaks, and the breadth of 
its fields, and the dark cluster of its woods, 
and its cities of white marble; and, with the 
moonshine sleeping over the whole scene, it 
was as beautiful as the moon or any star could 
be. And, among other objects, he saw the 
island of Seriphus, where his dear mother was. 

4 Wonder Book 


42 


A WONDER BOOK. 


Sometimes he and Quicksilver approached a 
cloud that at a distance looked as if it were 
made of fleecy silver, although when they 
plunged into it they found themselves chilled 
and moistened with gray mist. So swift was 
their flight, however, that in an instant they 
emerged from the cloud into the moonlight 
again. Once a high-soaring eagle flew right 
against the invisible Perseus. The bravest 
sights were the meteors that gleamed suddenly 
out as if a bonfire had been kindled in the sky, 
and made the sunshine pale for as much as a 
hundred miles around them. 

As the two companions flew onward Perseus 
fancied that he could hear the rustle of a gar- 
ment close by his side ; and it was on the side 
opposite to the one where he beheld Quicksil- 
ver, yet only Quicksilver was visible. 

“Whose garment is this,” inquired Perseus, 
“that keeps rustling close behind me in the 
breeze?” 

“Oh, it is my sister’s!” answered Quicksil- 
ver. “She is coming along with us, as I told 
you she would. We could do nothing without 
the help of my sister. You have no idea how 
wise she is. She has such eyes, too! Why, 
she can see you at this moment just as dis- 
tinctly as if you were not invisible, and I’ll 


A WONDER BOOK. 


43 


venture to say she will be the first to discover 
the Gorgons. ’ ’ 

By this time, in their swift voyage through 
the air, they had come within sight of the 
great ocean, and were soon flying over it. Far 
beneath them the waves tossed themselves 
tumultuously in mid-sea, or rolled a white surf 
line upon the long beaches, or foamed against 
the rocky cliffs with a roar that was thunder- 
ous in the lower world, although it became a 
gentle murmur, like the voice of a baby half 
asleep before it reached the ears of Perseus. 
Just then a voice spoke in the air close by him. 
It seemed to be a woman’s voice, and was 
melodious, though not exactly what might be 
called sweet, but grave and mild. 

“Perseus,” said the voice, “there are the 
Gorgons. ’ ’ 

“Where?” exclaimed Perseus. “I cannot 
see them. ’ ’ 

“On the shore of that island beneath you,” 
replied the voice. “A pebble dropped from 
your hand would strike in the midst of them. ’ * 

“I told you she would be the first to discover 
them,” said Quicksilver to Perseus. “And 
there they are !” 

Straight downward, two or three thousand 
feet below him, Perseus perceived a small 


44 


A WONDER BOOK. 


island with the sea breaking into white foam 
all around its rocky shore except on one side, 
where there was a beach of snowy sand. He 
descended toward it, and, looking earnestly at 
a cluster or heap of brightness at the foot of a 
precipice of black rocks, behold, there were 
the terrible Gorgons! They lay fast asleep 
soothed by the thunder of the sea, for it re- 
quired a tumult that would have deafened 
everybody else to lull such fierce creatures 
into slumber. The moonlight glistened on 
their steely scales and on their golden wings, 
which drooped idly over the sand. Their 
brazen claws, horrible to look at, were thrust 
out and clutched the wave-beaten fragments of 
rock, while the sleeping Gorgons dreamed of 
tearing some poor mortal all to pieces. The 
snakes that served them instead of hair seemed 
likewise to be asleep although now and then 
one would writhe and lift its head and thrust 
out its forked tongue, emitting a drowsy hiss, 
and then let itself subside among its sister 
-snakes. 

The Gorgons were more like an awful, 
gigantic kind of insect — immense golden- 
winged beetles or dragon-flies or things of that 
sort, at once ugly and beautiful — than like any- 
thing else, only that they were a thousand and 


A WONDER BOOK. 


45 


a million times as big. And, with all this, 
there was something partly human about them, 
too. Luckily for Perseus, their faces were 
completely hidden from him by the posture in 
which they lay, for had he but looked one in- 
stant at them he would have fallen heavily out 
of the air, an image of senseless stone. 

“Now,” whispered Quicksilver as he hovered 
by the side of Perseus, “now is your time to do 
the deed! Be quick, for if one of the Gorgons 
should awake, you are too late.” 

“Which shall I strike at?” asked Perseus, 
drawing his sword and descending a little 
lower. “They all three look alike. All three 
have snaky locks. Which of the three is Me- 
dusa?” 

It must be understood that Medusa was the 
only one of these dragon-monsters whose head 
Perseus could possibly cut off. As for the 
other two, let him have the sharpest sword 
that ever was forged, and he might have hacked 
away by the hour together without doing them 
the least harm. 

“Be cautious,” said the calm voice which 
had before spoken to him. “One of the Gor- 
gons is stirring in her sleep, and is just about 
to turn over. That is Medusa. Do not look 
at her. The sight would turn you to stone. 


46 


A WONDER BOOK. 


Look at the reflection of her face and figure in 
the bright mirror of your shield.” 

Perseus now understood Quicksilver’s motive 
for so earnestly exhorting himself to polish his 
shield. In its surface he could safely look at 
the reflection of the Gorgon’s face. And there 
it was, that terrible countenance, mirrored in 
the brightness of the shield, with the moon- 
light falling over it and displaying all its hor- 
ror. The snakes, whose venomous natures 
could not altogether sleep, kept twisting them- 
selves over the forehead. It was the fiercest 
and most horrible face that ever was seen or 
imagined, and yet with a strange, fearful, and 
savage kind of beauty in it. The eyes were 
closed and the Gorgon was still in a deep slum- 
ber, but there was an unquiet expression dis- 
turbing her features, as if the monster was 
troubled with an ugly dream. She gnashed 
her white tusks and dug into the sand with 
her brazen claws. 

The snakes, too, seemed to feel Medusa’s 
dream and to be made more restless by it. 
They twined themselves into tumultuous knots, 
writhed fiercely, and uplifted a hundred hiss- 
ing heads without opening their eyes. 

“Now, now!” whispered Quicksilver, who 


A WONDER BOOK. 


47 


was growing impatient. “Make a dash at the 
monster!” 

“But be calm,” said the grave, melodious 
voice at the young man’s side. “Look in your 
shield as you fly downward, and take care that 
you do not miss your first stroke. ’ ’ 

Perseus flew cautiously downward, still keep- 
ing his eyes on Medusa’s face as reflected in his 
shield. The nearer he came the more terrible 
did the snaky visage and metallic body of the 
monster grow. At last, when he found himself 
hovering over her within arm’s length, Perseus 
uplifted his sword, while at the same instant 
each separate snake upon the Gorgon’s head 
stretched threateningly upward and Medusa 
unclosed her eyes. But she awoke too late. 
The sword was sharp, the stroke fell like a 
lightning-flash, and the head of the wicked 
Medusa tumbled from her body ! 

“Admirably done ! ” cried Quicksilver. 
“Make haste and clap the head into your 
magic wallet. ’ ’ 

To the astonishment of Perseus, the small 
embroidered wallet which he had hung about 
his neck, and which had hitherto been no big- 
ger than a purse, grew all at once large enough 
to contain Medusa’s head. As quick as thought 


48 


A WONDER BOOK. 


he snatched it up, with the snakes still writh- 
ing upon it, and thrust it in. 

“Your task is done,” said the calm voice. 
“Now fly, for the other Gorgons will do their 
utmost to take vengeance for Medusa’s death. ’’ 

It was, indeed, necessary to take flight, for 
Perseus had not done the deed so quietly but 
that the clash of his sword and the hissing of 
the snakes and the thump of Medusa’s head as 
it tumbled upon the sea-beaten sand awoke 
the other two monsters. There they sat for 
an instant, sleepily rubbing their eyes with 
their brazen fingers, while all the snakes on 
their heads reared themselves on end with sur- 
prise and with venomous malice against they 
knew not what. But when the Gorgons saw 
the scaly carcass of Medusa headless, and her 
golden wings all ruffled and half-spread out on 
the sand, it was really awful to hear what 
yells and screeches they set up. And then the 
snakes! They sent forth a hundred-fold hiss 
with one consent, and Medusa’s snakes 
answered them out of the magic wallet. 

No sooner were the Gorgons broad awake 
than they hurtled upward into the air, bran- 
dishing their brass talons, gnashing their hor- 
rible tusks, and flapping their huge wings so 
wildly that some of the golden feathers were 


A WONDER BOOK. 


49 


shaken out and floated down upon the shore. 
And there, perhaps, those very feathers lie 
scattered till this day. Up rose the Gorgons, 
as I tell you, staring horribly about in hopes of 
turning somebody to stone. Had Perseus 
looked them in the face, or had he fallen into 
their clutches, his poor mother would never 
have kissed her boy again. But he took good 
care to turn his eyes another way, and as he 
wore the helmet of invisibility, the Gorgons 
knew not in what direction to follow him ; nor 
did he fail to make the best use of the winged 
slippers by soaring upward a perpendicular 
mile or so. At that height, when the screams 
of those abominable creatures sounded faintly 
beneath him, he made a straight course for 
the island of Seriphus, in order to carry 
Medusa’s head to King Polydectes. 

I have no time to tell you of several mar- 
velous things that befell Perseus on his way 
homeward, such as his killing a hideous sea- 
monster just as it was on the point of de- 
vouring a beautiful maiden, nor how he 
changed an enormous giant into a mountain of 
stone merely by showing him the head of the 
Gorgon. If you doubt this latter story, you 
may make a voyage to Africa some day or 

4 


50 


A WONDER BOOK. 


other and see the very mountain, which is still 
known by the ancient giant’s name. 

Finally, our brave Perseus arrived at the 
island, where he expected to see his dear 
mother. But during his absence the wicked 
king had treated Danae so very ill that she was 
compelled to make her escape, and had taken 
refuge in a temple, where some good old priests 
were extremely kind to her. These praise- 
worthy priests, and the kind-hearted fisherman 
who had first shown hospitality to Danae and 
little Perseus when he found them afloat in the 
chest, seem to have been the only persons on 
the island who cared about doing right. All 
the rest of the people, as well as King Poly- 
dectes himself, were remarkably ill-behaved, 
and deserved no better destiny than that which 
was now to happen. 

Not finding his mother at home, Perseus 
went straight to the palace, and was immedi- 
ately ushered into the presence of the king. 
Polydectes was by no means rejoiced to see 
him, for he had felt almost certain in his own 
evil mind that the Gorgons would have torn 
the poor young man to pieces and have eaten 
him up out of the way. However, seeing him 
safely returned, he put the best face he could 


A WONDER BOOK. 


51 


upon the matter and asked Perseus how he had 
succeeded. 

“Have you performed your promise?” in- 
quired he. “Have you brought me the head 
of Medusa with the snaky locks? If not, young 
nian, it will cost you dear, for I must have a 
bridal present for the beautiful Princess Hip- 
podamia, and there is nothing else that she 
would admire so much. ’ ’ 

“Yes, please your majesty, ” answered Per- 
seus in a quiet way, as if it were no very won- 
derful deed for such a young man as he to per- 
form. “I have brought you the Gorgon’s head, 
snaky locks, and all. ’ ’ 

“Indeed! Pray, let me see it,” quoth King 
Polydectes. “It must be a very curious spec- 
tacle, if all that travelers tell about it be true. ’ ’ 
“Your majesty is in the right,” replied Per- 
seus. “It is really an object that will be pretty 
certain to fix the regards of all who look at it. 
And, if your majesty think fit, I would suggest 
that a holiday be proclaimed, and that all 
your majesty’s subjects be summoned to behold 
this wonderful curiosity. Few of them, I im- 
agine, have seen a Gorgon’s head before, and 
perhaps never may again. ” 

The kin'g well knew that his subjects were 
an idle set of reprobates, and very fond of 


52 


A WONDER BOOK. 


sightseeing, as idle persons usually are. So he 
took the young man’s advice, and sent out her- 
alds and messengers in all directions to blow 
the trumpet at the street corners and in the 
market places and wherever two roads met, 
and summon everybody to court. Thither, ac- 
cordingly, came a great multitude of good-for- 
nothing vagabonds, all of whom, out of pure 
love of mischief, would have been glad if Per- 
seus had met with some ill-hap in his encounter 
with the Gorgons. If there were any better 
people in the island (as I really hope there may 
have been, although the story tells nothing 
about any such), they stayed quietly at home, 
minding their own business and taking care of 
their little children. Most of the inhabitants, 
at all events, ran as fast as they could to the 
palace, and shoved and pushed and elbowed 
one another in their eagerness to get near a 
balcony on which Perseus showed himself hold- 
ing the embroidered wallet in his hand. 

On a platform within full view of the balcony 
sat the mighty King Polydectes, amid his evil 
counsellors and with his flattering courtiers in 
a semicircle round about him. Monarch, 
counsellors, courtiers and subjects all gazed 
eagerly toward Perseus. 

“Show us the head! Show us the head!” 


A WONDER BOOK. 


53 


shouted the people; and there was a fierceness 
in their cry, as if they would tear Perseus to 
pieces unless he should satisfy them with what 
he had to show. “Show us the head of Me- 
dusa with the snaky locks!” 

A feeling of sorrow and pity came over the 
youthful Perseus. 

“O King Polydectes, ” cried he, “and ye 
many people, I am very loath to show you the 
Gorgon’s head. ’’ 

“Ah, the villain and coward!’’ yelled the 
people, more fiercely than before. “He is 
making game of us He has no Gorgon’s head! 
Show us the head if you have it, or we will 
take your own head for a football!” 

The evil counsellors whispered bad advice in 
the king’s ear; the courtiers murmured, with 
one consent, that Perseus had shown disrespect 
to their royal lord and master, and the great 
King Polydectes himself waved his hand and 
ordered him, with the stern, deep voice of 
authority, on his peril to produce the head. 

“Show me the Gorgon’s head, or I will cut 
off your own!” 

And Perseus sighed. 

“This instant,” repeated Polydectes, “or 
you die!” 


54 


A WONDER BOOK. 


“Behold it, then!” cried Perseus, in a voice 
like the blast of a trumpet. 

And suddenly holding up the head, not an 
eyelid had time to wink before the wicked 
King Polydectes, his evil counsellors, and all 
his fierce subjects were no longer anything but 
the mere images of a monarch and his people. 
They were all fixed forever in the look and 
attitude of that moment. At the first glimpse 
of the terrible head of Medusa they whitened 
into marble. And Perseus thrust the head 
back into his wallet, and went to tell his dear 
mother that she need no longer be afraid of 
the wicked King Polydectes. 


A WONDER BOOK. 


55 


TANGLEWOOD PORCH. 

AFTER THE STORY. 

“Was not that a very fine story?” asked 
Eustace. 

“Oh, yes, yes!” cried Cowslip, clapping her 
hands. “And those funny old women with 
only one eye amongst them ! I never heard 
of anything so strange.” 

“As to their one tooth, which they shifted 
about,” observed Primrose, “there was nothing 
so very wonderful in that. I suppose it was a 
false tooth. But think of your turning Mer- 
cury into Quicksilver, and talking about his 
sister! You are too ridiculous!” 

“And she was not his sister?” asked Eustace 
Bright. “If I had thought of it sooner, I 
would have described her as a maiden lady 
who kept a pet owl. ” 

“Well, at any rate,” said Primrose, “your 
story seems to have driven away the mist.” 

And, indeed, while the tale was going for- 
ward the vapors had been quite exhaled from 
the landscape. A scene was now disclosed 


56 


A WONDER BOOK. 


which the spectators might almost fancy as hav- 
ing been created since they had last looked in 
the direction where it lay. About half a mile 
distant, in the lap of the valley, now appeared 
a beautiful lake which reflected a perfect image 
of its own wooded banks and of the summits of 
the more distant hills. It gleamed in glassy 
tranquillity, without the trace of a winged 
breeze on any part of its bosom. Beyond its 
farther shore was Monument Mountain in a 
recumbent position, stretching almost across 
the valley. Eustace Bright compared it to a 
huge headless sphinx wrapped in a Persian 
shawl ; and, indeed, so rich and diversified was 
the autumnal foliage of its woods that the simile 
of the shawl was by means too high-colored for 
the reality. In the lower ground, between 
Tanglewood and the lake, the clumps of trees 
and borders of woodland were chiefly golden- 
leaved or dusky brown, as having suffered 
more from frost than the foliage on the hillside. 

Over all this scene there was a genial sun- 
shine, intermingled with a slight haze which 
made it unspeakably soft and tender. Oh, 
what a day of Indian summer was it going to 
be! The children snatched their baskets, and 
set forth with hop, skip, and jump, and all 
sorts of frisks and gambols, while Cousin Eus- 


A WONDER BOOK. 


57 


tace proved his fitness to preside over the party 
by outdoing all their antics and performing 
several new capers which none of them could 
ever hope to imitate. Behind went a good old 
dog whose name was Ben. He was one of the 
most respectable and kind-hearted of quadru- 
peds, and probably felt it to be his duty not to 
trust the children away from their parents 
without some better guardian than this feather- 
brained Eustace Bright. 


58 


A WONDER BOOK. 


SHADOW BROOK. 

INTRODUCTORY TO “THE GOLDEN TOUCH.” 

At noon our juvenile party assembled in a 
dell through the depths of which ran a little 
brook. The dell was narrow, and its steep 
sides, from the margin of the stream upward, 
were thickly set with trees, chiefly walnuts 
and chestnuts, among which grew a few oaks 
and maples. In the summer-time the shade 
of so many clustering branches meeting and 
intermingling across the rivulet was deep 
enough to produce a noontide twilight. Hence 
came the name of Shadow Brook. But now, 
ever since Autumn had crept into this secluded 
place, all the dark verdure was changed to 
gold, so that it really kindled up the dell, 
instead of shading it. The bright yellow 
leaves, even had it been a cloudy day, would 
have seemed to keep the sunlight among them, 
and enough of them had fallen to strew all the 
bed and margin of the brook with sunlight, 
too. Thus the shady nook where Summer had 


A WONDER BOOK. 


59 


cooled herself was now the sunniest spot any- 
where to be found. 

The little brook ran along over its pathway 
of gold, here pausing to form a pool in which 
minnows were darting to and fro, and then it 
hurried onward at a swifter pace, as if in haste 
to reach the lake, and, forgetting to look 
whither it went, it tumbled over the root of a 
tree which stretched quite across its current. 
You would have laughed to hear how noisily 
it babbled about this accident. And even after 
it had run onward the brook still kept talking 
to itself, as if it were in a maze. It was won- 
der smitten, I suppose, at finding its dark dell 
so illuminated and at hearing the prattle and 
merriment of so many children. So it stole 
away as quickly as it could and hid itself in the 
lake. 

In the dell of Shadow Brook, Eustace Bright 
and his little friends had eaten their dinner. 
They had brought plenty of good things from 
Tanglewood in their baskets, and had spread 
them out on the stumps of trees and on mossy 
trunks, and had feasted merrily and made a 
very nice dinner indeed. After it was over 
nobody felt like stirring. 

“We will rest ourselves here,” said several 


60 


A WONDER BOOK. 


of the children, “while Cousin Eustace tells 
us another of his pretty stories. ” 

Cousin Eustace had a good right to be tired 
as well as the children, for he had performed 
great feats on that memorable forenoon. 
Dandelion, Clover, Cowslip, and Buttercup 
were almost persuaded that he had winged 
slippers like those which the Nymphs gave 
Perseus, so often had the student shown him- 
self at the tip-top of a nut tree, when only a 
moment before he had been standing on the 
ground. And then what showers of walnuts had 
he sent rattling down upon their heads for their 
busy little hands to gather in to the baskets ! 
In short, he had been as active as a squirrel or 
a monkey, and now, flinging himself down on 
the yellow leaves, seemed inclined to take a 
little rest. 

But children have no mercy nor consideration 
for anybody’s weariness, and if you had but a 
single breath left, they would ask you to spend 
it in telling them a story. 

“Cousin Eustace,” said Cowslip, “that was 
a very nice story of the Gorgon’s Head. Do 
you think you could tell us another as good?” 

“Yes, child,” said Eustace, pulling the brim 
of his cap over his eyes, as if preparing for a 


A WONDER BOOK. 


61 


nap. “I can tell you a dozen as good or bet- 
ter, if I choose.” 

“Oh, Primrose and Periwinkle, do you hear 
what he says?” cried Cowslip, dancing with 
delight. “Cousin Eustace is going to tell us a 
dozen better stories than that about the Gor- 
gon’s Head!” 

“I did not promise you even one, you foolish 
little Cowslip!” said Eustace, half pettishly. 
“However, I suppose you must have it. This 
is the consequence of having earned a reputa- 
tion. I wish I were a great deal duller than I 
am, or that I had never shown half the bright 
qualities with which Nature has endowed me, 
and then I might have my nap out in peace 
and comfort. ’ ’ 

But Cousin Eustace, as I think I have hinted 
before, was as fond of telling his stories as the 
children of hearing them. His mind was in 
a free and happy state, and took delight in its 
own activity, and scarcely required any ex- 
ternal impulse to set it at work. 

How different is this spontaneous play of the 
intellect from the trained diligence of maturer 
years, when toil has perhaps grown easy by 
long habit, and the day’s work may have 
become essential to the day’s comfort, although 
the rest of the matter has bubbled away! 


62 


A WONDER BOOK. 


This remark, however, is not meant for the 
children to hear. 

Without further solicitation Eustace Bright 
proceeded to tell the following really splendid 
story. It had come into his mind as he lay 
looking upward into the depths of a tree and 
observing how the touch of Autumn had 
transmuted every one of its green leaves into 
what resembled the purest gold. And this 
change, which we have all of us witnessed, is 
as wonderful as anything that Eustace told 
about in the story of Midas. 


A WONDER BOOK. 


G3 


THE GOLDEN TOUCH. 

Once upon a time there lived a very rich 
man, and a king besides, whose name was 
Midas; and he had a little daughter whom 
nobody but myself ever heard of, and whose 
name I either never knew or have entirely for- 
gotten. So, because I love odd names for little 
girls, I choose to call her Marygold. 

This King Midas was fonder of gold than of 
anything else in the world. He valued his 
royal crown chiefly because it was composed of 
that precious metal. If he loved anything 
better or half so well, it was the one little 
maiden who played so merrily around her 
father’s footstool. But the more Midas loved 
his daughter, the more did he desire and seek 
for wealth. He thought, foolish man ! that the 
best thing he could possibly do for this dear 
child would be to bequeath her the immensest 
pile of yellow, glistening coin that had ever 
been heaped together since the world was 
made. Thus he gave all his thoughts and all 
his time to this one purpose. If he ever hap- 


64 


A WONDER BOOK. 


pened to gaze for an instant at the gold-tinted 
clouds of sunset, he wished that they were real 
gold and that they could be squeezed safely 
into his strong box. When little Marygold 
ran to meet him with a bunch of buttercups and 
dandelions he used to say, “Poh, poh, child! 
If these flowers were as golden as they look, 
they would be worth the plucking!” 

And yet in his earlier days, before he was so 
entirely possessed with this insane desire for 
riches, King Midas had shown a great taste for 
flowers. He had planted a garden in which 
grew the biggest and beautifulest and sweet- 
est roses, that any mortal ever saw or smelt. 
These roses were still growing in the garden, 
as large, as lovely, and as fragrant as when 
Midas used to pass whole hours in gazing at 
them and inhaling their perfume. But now, 
if he looked at them at all, it was only to cal- 
culate how much the garden would be worth if 
each of the innumerable rose-petals were a 
thin plate of gold. And though he once was 
fond of music (in spite of an idle story about 
his ears, which were said to resemble those of 
an ass), the only music for poor Midas now 
was the chink of one coin against another. 

At length (as people always grow more and 
more foolish unless they take care to grow 


A WONDER BOOK. 


65 


wiser and wiser) Midas had got to be so exceed- 
ingly unreasonable that he could scarcely 
bear to see or touch any object that was not 
gold. He made it his custom, therefore, to 
pass a large portion of every day in a dark and 
dreary apartment underground, at the base- 
ment of his palace. It was here that he kept 
his wealth. To this dismal hole — for it was 
little better than a dungeon — Midas betook 
himself whenever he wanted to be particularly 
happy. Here, after carefully locking the 
door, he would take a bag of gold coin, or a 
gold cup as big as a wash-bowl, or a heavy 
golden bar, or a peck measure of gold-dust, 
and bring it from the obscure corners of the 
room into the one bright and narrow sunbeam 
that fell from the dungeon-like window. He 
valued the sunbeam for no other reason but 
that his treasure would not shine without its 
help. And then would he reckon over the coins 
in the bag, toss up the bar and catch it as it 
came down, sift the gold-dust through his 
fingers, look at the funny image of his own 
face as reflected in the burnished circumfer- 
ence of the cup, and whisper to himself, “O 
Midas, rich King Midas, what a happy man art 
thou!” But it was laughable to see how the 
image of his face kept grinning at him out of 

5 Wonder Book 


66 


A WONDER BOOK. 


the polished surface of the cup. It seemed to 
be aware of his foolish behavior, and to have a 
naughty inclination to make fun of him. 

Midas called himself a happy man, but felt 
that he was not yet quite so happy as he might 
be. The very tip-top of enjoyment would 
never be reached unless the whole world were 
to become his treasure-room and be filled with 
yellow metal which should be all his own. 

Now, I need hardly remind such wise little 
people as you are that in the old!, old times, 
when King Midas was alive, a great many 
things came to pass which we should consider 
wonderful if they were to happen in our own 
day and country. And, on the other hand, a 
great many things take place nowadays 
which seem not only wonderful to us, but at 
which the people of old times would have stared 
their eyes out. On the whole, I regard our 
own times as the strangest of the two; but, 
however that may be, I must go on with my 
story. 

Midas was enjoying himself in his treasure- 
room one day as usual, when he perceived a 
shadow fall over the heaps of gold, and, look- 
ing suddenly up, what should he behold but 
the figure of a stranger standing in the bright 
and narrow sunbeam ! It was a young man 


A WONDER BOOK. 


67 


with a cheerful and ruddy face. Whether it 
was that the imagination of King Midas threw 
a yellow tinge over everything, or whatever 
the cause might be, he could not help fancying 
that the smile with which the stranger regarded 
him had a kind of golden radiance in it. Cer- 
tainly, although his figure intercepted the sun- 
shine, there was now a brighter gleam upon 
all the piled-up treasures than before. Even 
the remotest corners had their share of it, and 
were lighted up, when the stranger smiled, as 
with tips of flame and sparkles of fire. 

As Midas knew that he had carefully turned 
the key in the lock, and that no mortal 
strength could possibly break into his treasure- 
room, he of course concluded that his visitor 
must be something more than mortal. It is no 
matter about telling you who he was. In those 
days, when the earth was comparatively a new 
affair, it was supposed to be often the resort of 
beings endowed with supernatural powers, and 
who used to interest themselves in the joys and 
sorrows of men, women and children, half play- 
fully and half seriously. Midas had met such 
beings before now, and was not sorry to meet 
one of them again. The stranger’s aspect, 
indeed, was so good-humored and kindly, if 
not beneficent, that it would have been unrea- 


68 


A WONDER BOOK. 


sonable to suspect him of intending any mis- 
chief. It was far more probable that he came 
to do Midas a favor. And what could that 
favor be unless to multiply his heaps of 
treasure? 

The stranger gazed about the room, and 
when his lustrous smile had glistened upon all 
the golden objects that were there, he turned 
again to Midas. 

“You are a wealthy man, friend Midas,” he 
observed. “I doubt whether any other four 
walls on earth contain so much gold as you 
have contrived to pile up in this room. ’ ’ 

“I have done pretty well — pretty well,” 
answered Midas in a discontented tone. ‘ ‘ But, 
after all, it is but a trifle when you consider 
that it has taken me my whole life to get it 
together. If one could live a thousand years, 
he might have time to grow rich. ’ ’ 

“What!” exclaimed the stranger. “Then 
you are not satisfied?” 

Midas shook his head. 

“And pray what would satisfy you?” asked 
the stranger. “Merely for the curiosity of the 
thing, I should be glad to know. ” 

Midas paused and meditated. He felt a pre- 
sentiment that this stranger, with such a golden 
luster in his good-humored smile, had come 


A WONDER BOOK. 


69 


hither with both the power and the purpose of 
gratifying his utmost wishes. Now, there- 
fore, was the fortunate moment when he had 
but to speak and obtain whatever possible or 
seemingly impossible thing it might come into 
his head to ask. So he thought, and thought, 
and thought, and heaped up one golden mount- 
ain upon another in his imagination, without 
being able to imagine them big enough. At 
last a bright idea occurred to King Midas. It 
seemed really as bright as the glistening metal 
which he loved so much. 

Raising his head, he looked the lustrous 
stranger in the face. 

“Well, Midas,” observed his visitor, “I see 
that you have at length hit upon something 
that will satisfy you. Tell me your wish. ” 

“It is only this,” replied Midas: “I am 
weary of collecting my treasures with so much 
trouble, and beholding the heap so diminutive 
after I have done my best. I wish everything 
that I touch to be changed to gold.” 

The stranger’s smile grew so very broad 
that it seemed to fill the room like an outburst 
of the sun gleaming into a shadowy dell where 
the yellow autumnal leaves — for so looked vthe 
lumps and particles of gold— lie strewn in the 
glow of light. 


70 


A WONDER BOOK. 


“The Golden Touch!” exclaimed he. “You 
certainly deserve credit, friend Midas, for strik- 
ing out so brilliant a conception. But are you 
quite sure that this will satisfy you?” 

“How could it fail?” said Midas. 

“And will you never regret the possession 
of it?” 

“What could induce me?” asked Midas. “I 
ask nothing else to render me perfectly happy. ’ ’ 
“Be it as you wish, then,” replied the 
stranger, waving his hand in token of farewell. 
“To-morrow at sunrise you will find yourself 
gifted with the Golden Touch. ’ ’ 

The figure of the stranger then became ex- 
ceedingly bright, and Midas involuntarily closed 
his eyes. On opening them again he beheld 
only one yellow sunbeam in the room, and all 
around him the glistening of the precious metal 
which he had spent his life in hoarding up. 

Whether Midas slept as usual that night the 
story does not say. Asleep or awake, however, 
his mind was probably in the state of a child’s 
to whom a beautiful new plaything has been 
promised in the morning. At any rate, day 
had hardly peeped over the hills when King 
Midas was broad awake, and, stretching his 
arms out of bed, began to touch the objects 
that were within reach. He was anxious to 


A WONDER BOOK. 


71 


prove whether the Golden Touch had really 
come, according to the stranger’s promise. So 
he laid his finger on a chair by the bedside and 
on various other things, but was grievously 
disappointed to perceive that they remained 
of exactly the same substance as before. In- 
deed, he felt very much afraid that he had only 
dreamed about the lustrous stranger, or else 
that the latter had been making game of him. 
And what a miserable affair would it be if, 
after all his hopes, Midas must content himself 
with what little gold he could scrape together 
by ordinary means instead of creating it by a 
touch ! 

All this while it was only the gray of the 
morning, with but a streak of brightness along 
the edge of the sky, where Midas could not 
see it. He lay in a very disconsolate mood, 
regretting the downfall of his hopes, and kept 
growing sadder and sadder until the earliest 
sunbeam shone through the window and gilded 
the ceiling over his head. It seemed to Midas 
that this bright yellow sunbeam was reflected 
in rather a singular way on the white covering 
of the bed. Looking more closely, what was 
his astonishment and delight when he found 
that this linen fabric had been transmuted to 
what seemed a woven texture of the purest 


72 


A WONDER BOOK. 


and brightest gold! The Golden Touch had 
come to him with the first sunbeam ! 

Midas started up in a kind of joyful frenzjr, 
and ran about the room grasping at everything 
that happened to be in his way. He seized 
one of the bed-posts, and it became immedi- 
ately a fluted golden pillar. He pulled aside a 
window-curtain in order to admit a clear spec- 
tacle of the wonders which he was performing, 
and the tassel grew heavy in his hand — a mass 
of gold. He took up a book from the table. 
At his first touch it assumed the appearance 
of such a splendidly bound and gilt-edged vol- 
ume as one often meets with nowadays, but, 
on running his fingers through the leaves, be- 
hold ! it was a bundle of thin golden plates in 
which all the wisdom of the book had grown 
illegible. He hurriedly put on his clothes, and 
was enraptured to see himself in a magnificent 
suit of gold cloth, which retained its flexibility 
and softness, although it burdened him a little 
with its weight. He drew out his handkerchief, 
which little Marygold had hemmed for him. 
That was likewise gold, with the dear child’s 
neat and pretty stitches running all along the 
border in gold thread ! 

Somehow or other, this last transformation 
did not quite please King Midas. He would 


A WONDER BOOK. 


73 


rather that his little daughter’s handiwork 
should have remained just the same as when 
she climbed up on his knee and put it into his 
hand. 

But it was not worth while to vex himself 
about a trifle. Midas now took his spectacles 
from his pocket, and put them on his nose in 
order that he might see more distinctly what 
he was about. In those days spectacles for 
common people had not been invented, but 
were already worn by kings, else how could 
Midas have had any? To his great perplexity, 
however, excellent as the glasses were, he dis- 
covered that he could not possibly see through 
them. But this was the most natural thing 
in the world, for on taking them off the trans- 
parent crystals turned out to be plates of yel- 
low metal, and, of course, were worthless as 
spectacles, though valuable as gold. It struck 
Midas as rather inconvenient that, with all his 
wealth, he could never again be rich enough 
to own a pair of serviceable spectacles. 

“It is no great matter, nevertheless,” said 
he to himself, very philosophically, “we can- 
not expect any great good without its being 
accompanied with some small inconvenience. 
The Golden Touch is worth the sacrifice of a 
pair of spectacles at least, if not of one’s very 

6 Wonder Book 


74 


A WONDER BOOK. 


eyesight. My own eyes will serve for ordinary 
purposes, and little Marygold will soon be old 
enough to read to ine. ” 

Wise King Midas was so exalted by his good 
fortune that the palace seemed not sufficiently 
spacious to contain him. He, therefore, went 
downstairs, and smiled on observing that the 
balustrade of the staircase became a bar of bur- 
nished gold as his hand passed over it in his 
descent. He lifted the door-latch (it was brass 
only a moment ago, but golden when his fin- 
gers quitted it) and emerged into the garden. 
Here, as it happened, he found a great num- 
ber of beautiful roses in full bloom, and others 
in all the stages of lovely bud and blossoms. 
Very delicious was their fragrance in the morn- 
ing breeze. Their delicate blush was one of 
the fairest sights in the world, so gentle, so 
modest, and so full of sweet tranquility did 
these roses seem to be. 

But Midas knew a way to make them far 
more precious, according to his way of think- 
ing, than roses had ever been before. So he 
took great pains in going from bush to bush, 
and exercised his magic touch most indefatig- 
ably, until every individual flower and bud, 
and even the worms at the heart of some of 
them, were changed to gold. By the time this 


A WONDER BOOK. 


75 


good work was completed King Midas was 
summoned to breakfast, and, as the morning 
air had given him an excellent appetite, he 
made haste back to the palace. 

What was usually a king’s breakfast in the 
days of Midas I really do not know, and can- 
not stop now to investigate. To the best of 
my belief, however, on this particular morning 
the breakfast consisted of hot cakes, some nice 
little brook-trout, roasted potatoes, fresh boiled 
eggs, and coffee for King Midas himself, and 
a bowl of bread and milk for his daughter 
Marygold. At all events, this is a breakfast 
fit to set before a king, and, whether he had it 
or not, King Midas could not have had a bet- 
ter. 

Little Marygold had not yet made her appear- 
ance. Her father ordered her to be called, 
and, seating himself at table, awaited the 
child’s coming in order to begin his own break- 
fast. To do Midas justice, he really loved his 
daughter, and loved her so much the more this 
morning on account of the good fortune which 
had befallen him. It was not a great while 
before he heard her coming along the passage- 
way crying bitterly. This circumstance sur- 
prised him, because Marygold was one of the 
cheerfullest little people whom you would see 


7 $ 


A WONDER BOOK. 


in a summer's day, and hardly shed a thimble- 
ful of tears in a twelvemonth. When Midas 
heard her sobs, he determined to put little 
Marygold into better spirits by an agreeable 
surprise; so, leaning across the table, he 
touched his daughter’s bowl (which was a china 
one with pretty figures all around it) and trans- 
muted it to gleaming gold. 

Meanwhile, Marygold slowly and disconso- 
lately opened the door, and showed herself with 
her apron at her eyes, still sobbing as if her 
heart would break. 

“'How now, my little lady!” cried Midas. 
“Pray, what is the matter with you this bright 
morning?” 

Marygold, without taking the apron from 
her eyes, held out her hand, in which was one 
of the roses which Midas had so recently trans- 
muted. 

“Beautiful!” exclaimed her father. “And 
what is there in this magnificent golden rose 
to make you cry?” 

“Ah, dear father!” answered the child, as 
well as her sobs would let her, “it is not beau- 
tiful, but the ugliest flower that ever grew. 
As soon as I was dressed I ran into the garden 
to gather some roses for you, because I know 
you like them, and like them the better when 


A WONDER BOOK. 


77 


gathered by your little daughter. But — oh, 
dear ! dear me ! — what do you think has hap- 
pened? Such a misfortune ! All the beautiful 
roses, that smelled so sweetly and had so many 
lovely blushes, are blighted and spoilt ! They 
are grown quite yellow, as you see this one, 
and have no longer any fragrance. What can 
be the matter with them?” 

“Poh, my dear little girl! pray don’t cry 
about it!” said Midas, who was ashamed to 
confess that he himself had wrought the change 
which so greatly afflicted her. “Sit down and 
eat your bread and milk. You will find it 
easy enough to exchange a golden rose like 
that, which will last hundreds of years, for an 
ordinary one, which would wither in a day. ” 

“I don’t care for such roses as this!” cried 
Marygold, tossing it contemptuously away. 
“It has no smell, and the hard petals prick my 
nose.” 

The child now sat down to table, but was so 
occupied with her grief for the blighted roses 
that she did not even notice the wonderful 
transmutation of her china bowl. Perhaps 
this was all the better, for Marygold was 
accustomed to take pleasure in looking at the 
queer figures and strange trees and houses that 
were painted on the circumference of the bowl, 


78 


A WONDER BOOK. 


and these ornaments were now entirely lost in 
the yellow hue of the metal. 

Midas, meanwhile, had poured out a cup of 
coffee ; and, as a matter of course, the coffee- 
pot, whatever metal it may have been when he 
took it up was gold when he set it down. He 
thought to himself that it was rather an ex- 
travagant style of splendor, in a king of his 
simple habits, to breakfast off a service of 
gold, and began to be puzzled with the diffi- 
culty of keeping his treasure safe. The cup- 
board and the kitchen would no longer be a 
secure place of deposit for articles so valuable 
as golden bowls and coffee-pots. 

Amid these thoughts he lifted a spoonful of 
coffee to his lips, and, sipping it, was aston- 
ished fto perceive that the instant his lips 
touched the liquid it became molten gold, and 
the next moment hardened into a lump. 

“Ha!” exclaimed Midas, rather aghast. 

“What is the matter, father?” asked little 
Mary gold, gazing at him with the tears still 
standing in her eyes. 

“Nothing, child, nothing!” said Midas. 
“Eat your milk before it gets quite cold. ” 

He took one of the nice little trouts on his 
plate, and, by way of experiment, touched its 
tail with his finger. To his horror, it was im- 


A WONDER BOOK. 


79 


mediately transmuted from an admirably fried 
brook-trout into a gold fish, though not one of 
those gold-fishes which people often keep in 
glass globes as ornaments for the parlor. No, 
but it was really a metallic fish, and looked as 
if it had been very cunningly made by the nic- 
est goldsmith in the world. Its little bones 
were now golden wires, its fins and tail were 
thin plates of gold, and there were the marks 
of the fork in it, and all the delicate frothy 
appearance of a nicely fried fish exactly imi- 
tated in metal. A very pretty piece of work, 
as you may suppose, only King Midas, just at 
that moment, would much rather have had a 
real trout in his dish than this elaborate and 
valuable imitation of one. 

“I don’t quite see,” thought he to himself, 
“how I am to get any breakfast.” 

He took one of the smoking hot cakes, and 
had scarcely broken it when, to his cruel mor- 
tification, though a moment before it had been 
of the whitest wheat, it assumed the yellow 
hue of Indian meal. To say the truth, if it 
had really been a hot Indian cake Midas would 
have prized it a good deal more than he now 
did, when its solidity and increased weight 
made him too bitterly sensible that it was gold. 
Almost in despair, he helped himself to a boiled 


80 


A WONDER BOOK. 


egg, which immediately underwent a change 
similar to those of the trout and the cake. The 
egg, indeed, might have been mistaken for one 
of those which the famous goose in the story- 
book was in the habit of laying; but King 
Midas was the only goose that had had any- 
thing to do with the matter. 

“Well, this is a quandary !” thought he lean- 
ing back in his chair and looking quite envi- 
ously at little Marygold, who was now eating 
her bread and milk with great satisfaction. 
“Such a costly breakfast before me, and noth- 
ing that can be eaten!” 

Hoping that, by dint of great dispatch, he 
might avoid what he now felt to be a consider- 
able inconvenience, King Midas next snatched 
a hot potato, and attempted to cram it into his 
mouth and swallow it in a hurry. But the 
Golden Touch was too nimble for him. He 
found his mouth full, not of mealy potato, but 
of solid metal, which so burnt his tongue that 
he roared aloud, and, jumping up from the 
table, began to dance and stamp about the room 
both with pain and affright. 

“Father, dear father!” cried little Marygold, 
who was a very affectionate child, “pray what 
is the matter? Have you burnt your mouth?’ 

“Ah, dear child,” groaned Midas dolefully, 



“Alas, what had he done?” — Page 82. 

Wonder Book. 








A WONDER BOOK. 


81 


“I don’t know what is to become of your poor 
father. ’ ’ 

And truly, my dear little folks, did you ever 
hear of such a pitiable case in all your lives? 
Here was literally the richest breakfast that 
could be set before a king, and its very rich- 
ness made it absolutely good for nothing. 
The poorest laborer sitting down to his crust 
of bread and cup of water was far better off 
than King Midas, whose delicate food was really 
worth its weight in gold. And what was to be 
done? Already at breakfast Midas was exces- 
sively hungry. Would he be less so by dinner 
time? And how ravenous would be his appe- 
tite for supper, which must undoubtedly con- 
sist of the same sort of indigestible dishes as 
those now before him ! How many days, think 
you, would he survive a continuance of this 
rich fare? 

These reflections so troubled wise King 
Midas that he began to doubt whether, after 
all, riches are the one desirable thing in the 
world, or even the most desirable. But this 
was only a passing thought. So fascinated 
was Midas with the glitter of the yellow metal 
that he would still have refused tp give up the 
Golden Touch for so paltry a consideration as 
a breakfast. Just imagine what a price for 
6 


82 


A WONDER BOOK. 


one meal’s victuals! It would have been the 
same as paying millions and millions of money 
(and as many millions more as would take for- 
ever to reckon up) for some fried trout, an egg, 
a potato, a hot cake, and a cup of coffee. 

“It would be quite too dear,” thought Midas. 

Nevertheless, so great was his hunger and 
the perplexity of his situation that he again 
groaned aloud, and very grievously too. Our 
pretty Marygold could endure it no longer. 
She sat a moment gazing at her father, and 
trying with all the might of her little wits to 
find out what was the matter with him. Then, 
with a sweet and sorrowful impulse to comfort 
him, she started from her chair and, running to 
Midas, threw her arms affectionately about his 
knees. Hp bent down and kissed her. He 
felt that his little daughter’s love was worth a 
thousand times more than he had gained by 
the Golden Touch. 

“My precious, precious Marygold!” cried he. 

But Marygold made no answer. 

Alas, what had he done? How fatal was the 
gift which the stranger bestowed! The 
moment the lips of Midas touched Marygold’s 
forehead a change had taken place. Her 
sweet rosy face, so full of affection as it had 
been, assumed a glittering yellow color, with 


A WONDER BOOK. 


83 


yellow tear-drops congealing on her cheeks. 
Her beautiful brown ringlets took the same 
tint. Her soft and tender little form grew 
hard and inflexible within her father’s encirc- 
ling arms. Oh, terrible misfortune ! The vic- 
tim of his insatiable desire for wealth, little 
Mary gold was a human child no longer, but a 
golden statue! 

Yes, there she was, with the questioning look 
of love, grief, and pity hardened into her face. 
It was the prettiest and most woeful sight that 
ever mortal saw. All the features and tokens 
of Marygold were there ; even the beloved little 
dimple remained in her golden chin. But the 
more perfect was this resemblance the greater 
was the father’s agony at beholding this golden 
image, which was all that was left him of a 
daughter. It had been a favorite phrase of 
Midas, whenever he felt particularly fond of 
the child, to say that she was worth her weight 
in gold. And now the phrase had become liter- 
ally true. And now at last, when it was too 
late, he felt how infinitely a warm and tender 
heart that loved him exceeded in value all the 
wealth that could be piled up betwixt the earth 
and sky. 

It would be too sad a story if I were to tell 
you how Midas, in the fullness of all his grati- 


84 


A WONDER BOOK. 


fied desires, began to wring his hands and 
bemoan himself, and how he could neither bear 
to look at Mary gold, nor yet to look away from 
her. Except when his eyes were fixed on the 
image he could not possibly believe that she 
was changed to gold. But, stealing another 
glance, there was the precious little figure, with 
a yellow tear-drop on its yellow cheek, and a 
look so piteous and tender that it seemed as if 
that very expression must needs soften the gold 
and make it flesh again. This, however, could 
not be. So Midas had only to wring his hands 
and to wish that he were the poorest man in 
the wide world, if the loss of all his wealth 
might bring back the faintest rose-color to his 
dear child’s face. 

While he was in this tumult of despair he 
suddenly beheld a stranger standing near the 
door. Midas bent down his head without 
speaking, for he recognized the same figure 
which had appeared to him the day before in 
the treasure-room and had bestowed on him 
this disastrous faculty of the Golden Touch. 
The stranger’s countenance still wore a smile, 
which seemed to shed a yellow luster all about 
the room, and gleamed on little Mary gold’s 
image and on the other objects that had been 
transmuted by the touch of Midas. 


A WONDER BOOK. 


85 


“Well, friend Midas,” said the stranger, 
“pray how do you succeed with the Golden 
Touch?” 

Midas shook his head. 

“I am very miserable,” said he. 

“Very miserable, indeed!” exclaimed the 
stranger. “And how happens that? Have I 
not faithfully kept my promise with you? Have 
you not everything that your heart desired?” 

“Gold is not everything,” answered Midas, 
“and I have lost all that my heart really cared 
for. ’ ’ 

“Ah! So you have made a discovery since 
yesterday?” observed the stranger. “Let us 
see, then. Which of these two things do you 
think is really worth the most — the gift of the 
Golden Touch or one cup of clear cold water?” 

“Oh, blessed water!” exclaimed Midas. “It 
will never moisten my parched throat again.” 

“The Golden Touch,” continued the 
stranger, “or a crust of bread?” 

“A piece of bread,” answered Midas, “is 
worth all the gold on earth.” 

“The Golden Touch,” asked the stranger, 
“or your own little Marygold, warm, soft, and 
loving, as she was an hour ago?” 

“Oh, my child, my dear child!” cried poor 
Midas, wringing his hands. “I would not have 


A WONDER BOOK. 


given that one small dimple in her chin for the 
power of changing this whole big earth into a 
solid lump of gold!” 

“You are wiser than you were, King Midas, ’ ' 
said the stranger, looking seriously at him. 
“Your own heart, I perceive, has not been 
entirely changed from flesh to gold. Were it 
so, your case would indeed be desperate. But 
you appear to be still capable of understandings 
that the commonest things, such as lie within 
everybody’s grasp, are more valuable than the 
riches which so many mortals sigh and struggle 
after. Tell me now, do you sincerely desire to- 
rid yourself of this Golden Touch?” 

“It is hateful to me!” replied Midas,. 

A fly settled on his nose, but immediately 
fell to the floor, for it too had become gold. 
Midas shuddered. 

“Go, then,” said the stranger, “and plunge 
into the river that glides past the bottom of 
your garden. Take likewise a vase of the same 
water, and sprinkle it over any object that you 
may desire to change back again from gold into- 
its former substance. If you do this in earnest- 
ness and sincerity, it may possibly repair the 
mischief which your avarice has occasioned. ’ ’ 

King Midas bowed low, and when he lifted, 
his head the lustrous stranger had vanished. 


A WONDER BOOK. 


87 


You will easily believe that Midas lost no 
time in snatching up a great earthen pitcher 
(but, alas me ! it was no longer earthen after 
he touched it) and hastening to the river-side. 
As he scampered along and forced his way 
through the shrubbery, it was positively mar- 
velous to see how the foliage turned yellow 
behind him, as if the autumn had been there 
and nowhere else. On reaching the river’s 
brink he plunged headlong in, without waiting 
so much as to pull off his shoes. 

“Poof! poof! poof!’’ snorted King Midas as 
his head emerged out of the water. “Well, 
this is really a refreshing bath, and I think it 
must have quite washed away the Golden 
Touch. And now for filling my pitcher. ’ ’ 

As he dipped the pitcher into the water it 
gladdened his very heart to see it change from 
gold into the same good, honest earthen vessel 
which it had been before he touched it. He 
was conscious also of a change within himself. 
A cold, hard, and heavy weight seemed to 
have gone out of his bosom. No doubt his 
heart had been gradually losing its human sub- 
stance and transmuting itself into insensible 
metal, but had now softened back again into 
flesh. Perceiving a violet that grew on the 
bank of the river, Midas touched it with his 


A WONDER BOOK. 


finger, and was overjoyed to find that the deli- 
cate flower retained its purple hue, instead of 
undergoing a yellow blight. The curse of the 
Golden Touch had therefore really been 
removed from him. 

King Midas hastened back to the palace, and 
I suppose the servants knew not what to make 
of it when they saw their royal master so care- 
fully bringing home an earthen pitcher of 
water. But that water, which was to undo all 
the mischief that his folly had wrought, was 
more precious to Midas than an ocean of molten 
gold could have been. The first thing he did, 
as you need hardly be told, was to sprinkle it 
by handfuls over the golden figure of little 
Mary gold. 

No sooner did it fall on her than you would 
have laughed to see how the rosy color came 
back to the dear child’s cheek, and how she 
began to sneeze and sputter, and how aston- 
ished she was to find herself dripping wet and 
her father still throwing more water- over her. 

‘ ' Pray do not, dear father ! ’ ’ cried she. ' ‘ See 
how you have wet my nice frock, which I put 
on only this morning. ’ ’ 

For Marygold did not know that she had been 
a little golden statue, nor could she remember 
anything that had happened since the moment 


A WONDER BOOK. 


89 


when she ran with outstretched arms to com- 
fort poor King Midas. 

Her father did not think it necessary to tell 
his beloved child how very foolish he had 
been, but contented himself with showing how 
much wiser he had now grown. For this pur- 
pose he led little Marygold into the garden, 
where he sprinkled all the remainder of the 
water over the rose-bushes, and with such 
good effect that above five thousand roses re- 
covered their beautiful bloom. There were 
two circumstances, however, which, as long 
as he lived, used to put King Midas in mind 
of the Golden Touch. One was that the sands 
of the river sparkled like gold; the other, that 
little Marygold’s hair had now a golden tinge 
which he had never observed in it before she 
had been transmuted by the effect of his kiss. 
The change of hue was really an improvement, 
and made Marygold’s hair richer than in her 
babyhood. 

When King Midas had grown quite an old 
man, and used to trot Marygold’s children on 
his knee, he was fond of telling them this mar- 
velous story, pretty much as I have now told 
it to you. And then would he stroke their 
glossy ringlets and tell them that their hair 


90 


A WONDER BOOK. 


likewise had a rich shade of gold, which they 
had inherited from their mother. 

“And, to tell you the truth, my precious lit- 
tle folks,” quoth King Midas, diligently trot- 
ting the children all the while, “ever since that 
morning I have hated the very sight of all 
other gold save this. ’ ’ 


A WONDER BOOK. 


91 


SHADOW BROOK. 

AFTER THE STORY. 

“Well, children,” inquired Eustace, who 
was very fond of eliciting a definite opinion 
from his auditors, “did you ever, in all your 
lives, listen to a better story than this of ‘The 
Golden Touch’? ” 

“Why, as to the story of King Midas,” said 
saucy Primrose, “it was a famous one thou- 
sands of years before Mr. Eustace Bright came 
into the world, and will continue to be so long 
after he quits it. But some people have what 
we may call ‘The Leaden Touch,’ and make 
everything dull and heavy that they lay their 
fingers upon. ’ ’ 

“You are a smart child, Primrose, to be not 
yet in your teens,” said Eustace, taken rather 
aback by the piquancy of her criticism. “But 
you well know, in your naughty little heart, 
that I have burnished the old gold on Midas 
all over anew, and have made it shine as it 
never shone before. And then that figure of 
Mary gold! Do you perceive no nice work- 


92 


A WONDER BOOK. 


manship in that? And how finely I have 
brought out and deepened the moral! What 
say you, Sweet Fern, Dandelion, Clover, Peri- 
winkle? Would any of you, after hearing this 
story, be so foolish as to desire the faculty of 
changing things to gold?” 

“I should like,” said Periwinkle, a girl of 
ten, ‘‘to have the power of turning everything 
to gold with my right forefinger, but with my 
left forefinger I should want the power of 
changing it back again if the first change did 
not please me. And I know what I would do 
this very afternoon.” 

‘‘Pray tell me,” said Eustace. 

‘‘Why,” answered Periwinkle, “I would 
touch every one of these golden leaves on the 
trees with my left forefinger and make them 
all green again, so that we might have the 
summer back at once, with no ugly winter in 
the meantime.” 

‘‘Oh, Periwinkle!” cried Eustace Bright, 
“there you are wrong, and would do a great 
deal of mischief. Were I Midas, I would 
make nothing else but just such golden days 
as these, over and over again, all the year 
throughout. My best thoughts always come a 
little too late. Why did not I tell you how old 
King Midas came to America and changed 


A WONDER BOOK. 


93 


the dusky autumn, such as it is in other coun- 
tries, into the burnished beauty which it here 
puts on? He gilded the leaves of the great 
volume of Nature.” 

“Cousin Eustace,” said Sweet Fern, a good 
little boy who was always making particular 
inquiries about the precise height of giants 
and the littleness of fairies, “how big was 
Marygold, and how much did she weigh after 
she was turned to gold?” 

“She was about as tall as you are,” replied 
Eustace, “and, as gold is very heavy, she 
weighed at least two thousand pounds, and 
might have been coined into thirty or forty 
thousand gold dollars. I wish Primrose were 
worth half as much. Come, little people, let 
us clamber out of the dell and look about us.” 

They did so. The sun was now an hour or 
two beyond its noontide mark, and filled the 
great hollow of the valley with its western 
radiance, so that it seemed to be brimming 
with mellow light, and to spill it over the sur- 
rounding hillsides like golden wine out of a 
bowl. It was such a day that you could not 
help saying of it, “There never was such a 
day before!” although yesterday was just such 
a day, and to-morrow will be just such an- 
other. Ah, but there are very few of them in 


94 


A WONDER BOOK. 


a twelve-month’s circle! It is a remarkable 
peculiarity of these October days that each of 
them seems to occupy a great deal of space, 
although the sun rises rather tardily at that 
season of the year, and goes to bed, as little 
children ought, at sober six o’clock, or even 
earlier. We cannot therefore call the days 
long, but they appear, somehow or other, to 
make up for their shortness by their breadth, 
and when the cool night comes we are con- 
scious of having enjoyed a big armful of life 
since morning. 

“Come, children, come!” cried Eustace 
Bright. “More nuts, more nuts, more nuts! 
Fill all your baskets, and at Christmas- time I 
will crack them for you and tell you beautiful 
stories. ” 

So away they went, all of them in excellent 
spirits, except little Dandelion, who, I am 
sorry to tell you, had been sitting on a chest- 
nut-bur, and was stuck as full as a pin- 
cushion of its prickles. Dear me, how uncom- 
fortable he must have felt ! 


A WONDER BOOK. 


95 


TANGLEWOOD PLAYROOM. 

INTRODUCTORY TO THE 4 * PARADISE OF 
CHILDREN. ” 

The golden days of October passed away, as 
so many other Octobers have, and brown 
November likewise, and the greater part of 
chill December too. At last came merry 
Christmas, and Eustace Bright along with it, 
making it all the merrier by his presence, and 
the day after his arrival from college there 
came a mighty snowstorm. Up to this time 
the winter had held back, and had given us a 
good many mild days which were like smiles 
upon its wrinkled visage. The grass had kept 
itself green in sheltered places, such as the 
nooks of southern hill-slopes and along the lee 
of the stone fences. It was but a week or two 
ago, and since the beginning of the month, 
that the children had found a dandelion in 
bloom on the margin of Shadow Brook where it 
glides out of the dell. 

But no more green grass and dandelions 
now. This was such a snowstorm ! Twenty 


96 


A WONDER BOOK. 


miles of it might have been visible at once, 
between the windows of Tanglewood and the 
Dome of Taconic, had it been possible to see 
so far among the eddying drifts that whitened 
all the atmosphere. It seemed as if the hills 
were giants, and were flinging monstrous 
handfuls of snow at one another in their 
enormous sport. So thick were the fluttering 
snowflakes that even the trees midway down 
the valley were hidden by them the greater 
part of the time. Sometimes, it is true, the 
little prisoners of Tanglewood could discern 
a dim outline of Monument Mountain, and 
the smooth whiteness of the frozen lake at its 
base, and the black or gray tracts of woodland 
in the nearer landscape. But these were 
merely peeps through the tempest. 

Nevertheless, the children rejoiced greatly 
in the snowstorm. They had already made 
acquaintance with it by tumbling heels over 
head into its highest drifts, and flinging snow 
at one another, as we have just fancied the 
Berkshire mountains to be doing. And now 
they had come back to their spacious play- 
room, which was as big as the great drawing 
room, and was lumbered with all sorts of 
playthings, large and small. The biggest was 
a rocking-horse that looked like a real pony; 


A WONDER BOOK. 


97 


and there was a whole family of wooden, 
waxen, plaster, and china dolls, besides rag- 
babies ; and blocks enough to build Bunker Hill 
Monument, and ninepins and balls, and hum- 
ming-tops, and battledoors, and grace-sticks, 
and skipping-ropes, and more of such valuable 
property than I could tell of in a printed 
page. But the children liked the snowstorm 
better than them all. It suggested so many 
brisk enjoyments for to-morrow and all the 
remainder of the winter — the sleigh ride, the 
slides down hill into the valley, the snow im- 
ages that were to be shaped out, the snow 
fortresses that were to be built, and the snow- 
balling to be carried on ! 

So the little folks blessed the snowstorm, 
and were glad to see it come thicker and 
thicker, and watched hopefully the long drift 
that was piling itself up in the avenue, and 
was already higher than any of their heads. 

“Why, we shall be blocked up till spring!” 
cried they with the hugest delight. “What a 
pity that the house is too high to be quite cov- 
ered up! The little red house down yonder 
will be buried up to its eaves. ” 

“You silly children, what do you want of 
more snow?” asked Eustace, who, tired of some 
novel that he was skimming through, had 

7 Wonder Book 


A WONDER BOOK. 


strolled into the playroom. “It has done mis- 
chief enough already by spoiling the only skat- 
ing that I could hope for through the winter. 
We shall see nothing more of the lake till 
April, and this was to have been my first day 
upon it! Don’t you pity me, Primrose?” 

“Oh, to be sure!” answered Primrose, laugh- 
ing. “But for your comfort we will listen to 
another of your old stories, such as you told 
us under the porch and down in the hollow by 
Shadow Brook. Perhaps I shall like them 
better now, when there is nothing to do, than 
while there were nuts to be gathered and 
beautiful weather to enjoy.’’ 

Hereupon, Periwinkle, Clover, Sweet Fern, 
and as many others of the little fraternity and 
cousinhood as were still at Tanglewood 
gathered about Eustace and earnestly be- 
sought him for a story. The student yawned, 
stretched himself, and then, to the vast ad- 
miration of the small people, skipped three 
times back and forth over the top of a chair, in 
order, as he explained to them, to set his wits 
in motion. 

“Well, well, children,” said he after these 
preliminaries, “since you insist, and Primrose 
has set her heart upon it, I will see .what can 
be done for you. And, that you may *know 


A WONDER BOOK. 


99 


what happy days there were before snowstorms 
came into fashion, I will tell you a story of the 
oldest of all old times, when the world was as 
new as Sweet Fern’s brand-new humming-top. 
There was then but one season in the year, 
and that was the delightful summer, and but 
one age for mortals, and that was childhood.” 

“I never heard of that before,” said Prim- 
rose. 

‘‘Of course, you never did,” answered Eus- 
tace. ‘‘It shall be a story of what nobody but 
myself ever dreamed of — a Paradise of Chil- 
dren, and how, by the naughtiness of just such 
a little imp as Primrose here, it all came to 
nothing. ’ ’ 

So Eustace Bright sat down in the chair 
which he had just been skipping over, took 
Cowslip upon his knee, ordered silence through- 
out the auditory, and began a story about a 
bad, naughty child whose name was Pandora, 
and about her playfellow Epimetheus. You 
may read it, word for word, in the pages that 
come next. 


100 


A WONDER BOOK. 


THE PARADISE OF CHILDREN. 

Long, long ago, when this old world was in 
its tender infancy, there was a child named 
Epimetheus, who never had either father or 
mother ; and, that he might not be lonely, an- 
other child, fatherless and motherless like him- 
self, was sent from a far country to live with 
him and be his playfellow and helpmate. Her 
name was Pandora. 

The first thing that Pandora saw when she 
entered the cottage where Epimetheus dwelt 
was a great box, and almost the first question 
which she put to him, after crossing the 
threshold, was this: 

“Epimetheus, what have you in that box?” 

“My dear little Pandora,” answered Epime- 
theus, “that is a secret, and you must be kind 
enough not to ask any questions about it. 
The box was left here to be kept safely, and 
I do not myself know what it contains.” 

“But who gave it to you?” asked Pandora, 
“and where did it come from?” 

“That is a secret, too,” replied Epimetheus. 


A WONDER BOOK. 


101 


“How provoking!” exclaimed Pandora, 
pouting her lip. “I wish the great ugly box 
were out of the way!” 

“Oh, come, don’t think of it any more,” 
cried Epimetheus. “Let us run out of doors 
and have some nice play with the other chil- 
dren. ” 

It is thousands of years since Epimetheus 
and Pandora were alive, and the world nowa- 
days is a very different sort of thing from what 
it was in their time. Then everybody was a 
child. They needed no fathers and mothers to 
take care of the children, because there was no 
danger nor trouble of any kind, and no clothes 
to be mended, and there was always plenty to 
eat and drink. Whenever a child wanted his 
dinner, he found it growing on a tree ; and if 
he looked at the tree in the morning, he could 
see the expanding blossom of that night’s sup- 
per, or at eventide he saw the tender bud of 
to-morrow’s breakfast. It was a very pleasant 
life, indeed. No labor to be done, no tasks to 
be studied — nothing but sports and dances, and 
sweet voices of children talking or caroling like 
birds or gushing out in merry laughter through- 
out the livelong day. 

What was most wonderful of all, the children 
never quarreled among themselves, neither 


102 


A WONDER BOOK. 


had they any crying fits, nor, since time first 
began, had a single one of these little mortals 
ever gone apart into a corner and sulked. Oh, 
what a good time was that to be alive in ! The 
truth is, those ugly little winged monsters 
called Troubles, which are now almost as 
numerous as mosquitoes, had never yet been 
seen on the earth. It is probable that the very 
greatest disquietude which a child had ever 
experienced was Pandora’s vexation at not be- 
ing able to discover the secret of the mysteri- 
ous box. 

This was at first only the faint shadow of a 
Trouble, but every day it grew more and more 
substantial, until, before a great while, the 
cottage of Epimetheus and Pandora was less 
sunshiny than those of the other children. 

“Whence can the box have come?” Pandora 
continually kept saying to herself and to Epi- 
metheus, “and what in the world can be inside 
of it?” 

“Always talking about this box!” said Epi- 
metheus at last, for he had grown extremely 
tired of the subject. “I wish, dear Pandora, 
you would try to talk of something else. 
Come, let us go and gather some ripe figs and 
eat them under the trees for our supper. And 


A WONDER BOOK. 


103 


I know a vine that has the sweetest and juiciest 
grapes you ever tasted.” 

‘‘Always talking about grapes and figs!” 
cried Pandora pettishly. 

“Well, then,” said Epimetheus, who was a 
very good-tempered child, like a multitude of 
children in those days, “let us run out and 
have a merry time with our playmates. ” 

“I am tired of merry times, and don't care 
if I never have any more!” answered our pet- 
tish little Pandora. “And, besides, I never do 
have any. This ugly box ! I am so taken up 
with thinking about it all the time! I insist 
upon your telling me what is inside of it. ” 

“As I have already said fifty times over, I 
do not know, ” replied Epimetheus, getting a 
little vexed. “How, then, can I tell you what 
is inside?” 

“You might open it,” said Pandora, looking 
sideways at Epimetheus, “and then we could 
see for ourselves.” 

“Pandora, what are you thinking of ?” ex- 
claimed Epimetheus. 

And his face expressed so much horror at the 
idea of looking into a box which had been con- 
fided to him on the condition of his never 
opening it that Pandora thought it best not to 


104 


A WONDER BOOK. 


suggest it any more. Still, however, she could 
not help thinking and talking about the box. 

“At least,” she said, “you can tell me how 
it came here. ” 

“It was left at the door,” replied Epime- 
theus, “just before you came, by a person who 
looked very smiling and intelligent, and who 
could hardly forbear laughing as he put it 
down. He was dressed in an odd kind of a 
cloak and had on a cap that seemed to be made 
partly of feathers, so that it looked almost as if 
it had wings.” 

“What sort of a staff had he?” asked Pan- 
dora. 

“Oh, the most curious staff you ever saw!” 
cried Epimetheus. “It was like two serpents 
twisting around a stick, and was carved so nat- 
urally that I at first thought the serpents were 
alive. ” 

“I know him, ” said Pandora thoughtfully. 
“Nobody else has such a staff. It was Quick- 
silver, and he brought me hither as well as the 
box. No doubt he intended it for me, and 
most probably it contains pretty dresses for me 
to wear, or toys for you and me to play with, 
or something very nice for us both to eat. ” 

“Perhaps so,” answered Epimetheus, turn- 
ing away. “But until Quicksilver comes back 


A WONDER BOOK. 


105 


and tells ns so we have neither of us any right 
to lift the lid of the box.” 

“What a dull boy he is!” muttered Pandora 
as Epimetheus left the cottage. “I do wish 
he had a little more enterprise!” 

For the first time since her arrival, Epime- 
theus had gone out without asking Pandora to 
accompany him. He went to gather figs and 
grapes for himself, or to seek whatever amuse- 
ment he could find in other society than his lit- 
tle playfellow’s. He was tired to death of 
hearing about the box, and heartily wished that 
Quicksilver, or whatever was the messenger’s 
name, had left it at some other child’s door, 
where Pandora would never have set eyes on 
it. So perseveringly as she did babble about 
this one thing! The box, the box, and noth- 
ing but the box ! It seemed as if the box were 
bewitched, and as if the cottage were not big 
enough to hold it without Pandora’s contin- 
ually stumbling over it, and making Epime- 
theus stumble over it likewise, and bruising all 
four of their shins. 

Well, it was really hard that poor Epime- 
theus should have a box in his ears from morn- 
ing till night, especially as the little people of 
the earth were so unaccustomed to vexations in 
those happy days that they knew not how to 

8 Wonder Book 


106 


A WONDER BOOK. 


deal with them. Thus a small vexation made 
as much disturbance then as a far bigger one 
would in our own times. 

After Epimetheus was gone Pandora stood 
gazing at the box. She had called it ugly 
above a hundred times, but, in spite of all that 
she had said against it, it was positively a very 
handsome article of furniture, and would have 
been quite an ornament to any room in which 
it should be placed. It was made of a beauti- 
ful kind of wood with dark and rich veins 
spreading over its surface, which was so highly 
polished that little Pandora could see her face 
in it. As the child had no other looking-glass, 
it is odd that she did not value the box merely 
on this account. 

The edges and corners of the box were 
carved with most wonderful skill. Around the 
margin there were figures of graceful men and 
women and the prettiest children ever seen, 
reclining or sporting amid a profusion of flow- 
ers and foliage ; and these various objects were 
so exquisitely represented and were wrought 
together in such harmony that flowers, foliage, 
and human beings seemed to combine into a 
wreath of mingled beauty. But here and 
there, peeping forth from behind the carved 
foliage, Pandora once or twice fancied that she 


A WONDER BOOK. 


107 


saw a face not so lovely, or something or other 
that was disagreeable, and which stole the 
beauty out of all the rest. Nevertheless, on 
looking more closely and touching the spot 
with her finger, she could discover nothing of 
the kind. Some face that was really beautiful 
had been made to look ugly by her catching a 
sideway glimpse at it. 

The most beautiful face of all was done in 
what is called high relief in the center of the 
lid. There was nothing else save the dark, 
smooth richness of the polished wood, and this 
one face in the center with a garland of flowers 
about its brow. Pandora had looked at this 
face a great many times, and imagined that 
the mouth could smile if it liked or be grave 
when it chose, the same as any living mouth. 

The features, indeed, all wore a very lively 
and rather mischievous expression, which 
looked almost as if it needs must burst out of 
the carved lips and utter itself in words. 

Had the mouth spoken, it would probably 
have been something like this: 

“Do not be afraid, Pandora! What harm 
can there be in opening the box? Never mind 
that poor, simple Epimetheus. You are wiser 
than he, and have ten times as much spirit 


108 


A WONDER BOOK. 


Open the box and see if you do not fiild some- 
thing very pretty.” 

The box, I had almost forgotten to say, was 
fastened, not by a lock nor by any other such 
contrivance, but by a very intricate knot of 
gold cord. There appeared to be no end to 
this knot, and no beginning. Never was a 
knot so cunningly twisted nor with so many ins 
and outs, which roguishly defied the skilfullest 
fingers to disentangle them. And yet, by the 
very difficulty that there was in it, Pandora 
was the more tempted to examine the knot and 
just see how it was made. Two or three times 
already she had stooped over the box and taken 
the knot between her thumb and forefinger, 
but without positively trying to undo it. 

“I really believe,” said she to herself, “that 
I begin to see how it was done. Nay, perhaps 
I could tie it up again after undoing it. There 
would be no harm in that, surely. Even Epi- 
metheus would not blame me for that. I need 
not open the box, and should not, of course, 
without the foolish boy’s consent, even if the 
knot were untied.” 

It might have been better for Pandora if she 
had had a little work to do, or anything to 
employ her mind upon, so as not to be so con- 
stantly thinking of this one subject. But chil- 


A WONDER BOOK. 


109 


dren led so easy a life before any Troubles 
came into the world that they had really a 
great deal too much leisure. They could not 
be forever playing at hide-and-seek among the 
flower shrubs, or at blindman’s buff with gar- 
lands over their eyes, or at whatever other 
games had been found out while Mother Earth 
was in her babyhood. When life is all sport, 
toil is the real play. There was absolutely 
nothing to do. A little sweeping and dusting 
about the cottage, I suppose, and the gather- 
ing of fresh flowers (which were only too abun- 
dant everywhere) and arranging them in 
vases — and poor little Pandora’s day’s work 
was over. And, then, for the rest of the day, 
there was the box ! 

After all, I am not quite sure that the box 
was not a blessing to her in its way. It sup- 
plied her with such a variety of ideas to think 
of and to talk about whenever she had anybody 
to listen ! When she was in good humor she 
could admire the bright polish of its sides and 
the rich border of beautiful faces and foliage 
that ran all around it. Or, if she chanced to 
be ill-tempered, she could give it a push or 
kick it with her naughty little foot. And many 
a kick did the box (but it was a mischievous 
box, as we shall see, and deserved all it got) 


110 


A WONDER BOOK. 


many a kick did it receive. But certain it is, 
if it had not been for the box, our active- 
minded little Pandora would not have known 
half so well how to spend her time as she now 
did. 

For it was really an endless employment to 
guess what was inside. What could it be, in- 
deed? Just imagine, my little hearers, how 
busy your wits would be if there were a great 
box in the house which, as you might have 
reason to suppose, contained something new 
and pretty for your Christmas or New Year’s 
gifts. Do you think that you should be less 
curious than Pandora? If you were left alone 
with the box, might you not feel a little 
tempted to lift the lid? But you would not do 
it. Oh, fie! No, no! Only, if you thought 
there were toys in it, it would be so very hard 
to let slip an opportunity of taking just one 
peep! I know not whether Pandora expected 
any toys, for none had yet begun to be made, 
probably, in those days, when the world itself 
was one great plaything for the children that 
dwelt upon it. But Pandora was convinced 
that there was something very beautiful and 
valuable in the box, and, therefore, she felt 
just as anxious to take a peep as any of these 
little girls here around me would have felt, 


A WONDER BOOK. 


Ill 


and possibly a little more so ; but of that I am 
not quite so certain. 

On this particular day, however, which we 
have so long been talking about, her curiosity 
grew so much greater than it usually was that 
at last she approached the box. She was more 
than half determined to open it if she could. 
Ah, naughty Pandora! 

First, however, she tried to lift it. It was 
heavy — quite too heavy for the slender strength 
of a child like Pandora. She raised one end 
of the box a few inches from the floor, and let 
it fall again with a pretty loud thump. A 
moment afterward she almost fancied that she 
heard something stir inside of the box. She 
applied her ear as closely as possible and lis- 
tened. Positively, there did seem to be a kind 
of stifled murmur within ! Or was it merely 
the singing in Pandora’s ears? Or could it be 
the beating of her heart? The child could not 
quite satisfy herself whether she had heard 
anything or no. But, at all events, her curi- 
osity was stronger than ever. 

As she drew back her head her eyes fell 
upon the knot of gold cord. 

“It must have been a very ingenious per- 
son who tied this knot,’’ said Pandora to her- 
self. “But I think I could untie it, neverthe- 


112 


A WONDER BOOK. 


less. I am resolved, at least, to find the two 
ends of the cord. ’ ’ 

So she took the golden knot in her fingers 
and pried into its intricacies as sharply as she 
could. Almost without intending it or quite 
knowing what she was about, she was soon 
busily engaged in attempting to undo it. 
Meanwhile the bright sunshine came through 
the open window, as did likewise the merry 
voices of the children playing at a distance, 
and perhaps the voice of Epimetheus among 
them. Pandora stopped to listen. What a 
beautiful day it was! Would it not be wiser if 
she were to let the troublesome knot alone and 
think no more about the box, but run and join 
her little playfellows and be happy? 

All this time, however, her fingers were half 
unconsciously busy with the knot; and, hap- 
pening to glance at the flower- wreathed face 
on the lid of the enchanted box, she seemed to 
perceive it slyly grinning at her. 

“That face looks very mischievous,” thought 
Pandora. “I wonder whether it smiles be- 
cause I am doing wrong? I have the greatest 
mind in the world to run away.” 

But just then, by the merest accident, she 
gave the knot a kind of a twist which produced 
a wonderful result. The gold cord untwined 


A WONDER BOOK. 


113 


itself as if by magic, and left the box without 
a fastening. 

“This is the strangest thing I ever knew!” 
said Pandora. “What will Epimetheus say? 
And how can I possibly tie it up again?” 

She made one or two attempts to restore the 
knot, but soon found it quite beyond her skill. 
It had disentangled itself so suddenly that she 
could not in the least remember how the strings 
had been doubled into one another, and when 
she tried to recollect the shape and appearance 
of the knot it seemed to have gone entirely out 
of her mind. Nothing was to be done, there- 
fore, but to let the box remain as it was until 
Epimetheus should come in. 

‘‘But,” said Pandora, “when he finds the 
knot untied he will know that I have done it. 
How shall I make him believe that I have not 
looked into the box?” 

And then the thought came into her naughty 
little heart that, since she would be suspected 
of having looked into the box, she might just 
as well do so at once. Oh, very naughty and 
very foolish Pandora! You should have 
thought only of doing what was right and of 
leaving undone what was wrong, and not of 
what your playfellow Epimetheus would have 
said or believed. And so, perhaps, she might 
8 


114 


A WONDER BOOK. 


if the enchanted face on the lid of the box had 
not looked so bewitchingly persuasive at her, 
and if she had not seemed to hear, more dis- 
tinctly than before, the murmur of small voices 
within. She could not tell whether it was fancy 
or no, but there was quite a little tumult of 
whispers in her ear, or else it was her curiosity 
that whispered : 

“Let us out, dear Pandora — pray let us out! 
We will be such nice, pretty playfellows for 
you! Only let us out!” 

“What can it be?” thought Pandora. “Is 
there something alive in the box? Well ! — yes ! 
— I am resolved to take just one peep! Only 
one peep, and then the lid shall be shut down 
as safely as ever. There cannot possibly be 
any harm in just one little peep.” 

But it is now time for us to see what Epi- 
metheus was doing. 

This was the first time since his little play- 
mate had come to dwell with him that he had 
attempted to enjoy any pleasure in which she 
did not partake. But nothing went right, nor 
was he nearly so happy as on other days. He 
could not find a sweet grape or a ripe fig (if 
Epimetheushad a fault, it was a little too much 
fondness for figs), or, if ripe at all, they were 
overripe and so sweet as to be cloying. There 


A WONDER BOOK. 


115 


was no mirth in his heart, such as usually made 
his voice gush out of its own accord and swell 
the merriment of his companions. In short, 
he grew so uneasy and discontented that the 
other children could not imagine what was the 
matter with Epimetheus. Neither did he him- 
self know what ailed him any better than they 
did. For you must recollect that, at the time 
we are speaking of, it was everybody’s nature 
and constant habit to be happy. The world 
had not yet learned to be otherwise. Not a 
single soul or body, since these children were 
first sent to enjoy themselves on the beautiful 
earth, had ever been sick or out of sorts. 

At length, discovering that somehow or other 
he put a stop to all the play, Epimetheus 
judged it best to go back to Pandora, who was 
in a humor better suited to his own. But, 
with a hope of giving her pleasure, he gathered 
some flowers and made them into a wreath 
which he meant to put upon her head. The 
flowers were very lovely — roses and lilies and 
orange blossoms and a great many more, which 
left a trail of fragrance behind as Epimetheus 
carried them along; and the wreath was put 
together with as much skill as could reasonably 
be expected of a boy. The fingers of little 
girls, it has always appeared to me, are the 


116 


A WONDER BOOK. 


fittest to twine flower- wreaths ; but boys could 
do it in those days rather better than they can 
now. 

And here I must mention that a great black 
cloud had been gathering in the sky for some 
time past, although it had not yet overspread 
the sun. But just as Epimetheus reached the 
cottage door this cloud began to intercept the 
sunshine and thus to make a sudden and sad 
obscurity. 

He entered softly, for he meant, if possible, 
to steal behind Pandora and fling the wreath of 
flowers over her head before she should be 
aware of his approach. But, as it happened, 
there was no need of his treading so very 
lightly. He might have trod as heavily as he 
pleased — as heavily as a grown man — as heav- 
ily, I was going to say, as an elephant — with- 
out much probability of Pandora’s hearing his 
footsteps. She was too intent upon her pur- 
pose. At the moment of his entering the cot- 
tage the naughty child had put her hand to the 
lid and was on the point of opening the mys- 
terious box. Epimetheus beheld her. If he 
had cried out, Pandora would probably have 
withdrawn her hand, and the fatal mystery of 
the box might never have been known. 

But Epimetheus himself, although he said 


A WONDER BOOK. 


117 


very little about it, had his own share of curi- 
osity to know what was inside. Perceiving 
that Pandora was resolved to find out the 
secret, he determined that his playfellow should 
not be the only wise person in the cottage. 
And if there were anything pretty or valuable 
in the box, he meant to take half of it to him- 
self. Thus, after all his sage speeches to Pan- 
dora about restraining her curiosity, Epim- 
^theus turned out to be quite as foolish, and 
nearly as much in fault, as she. So, whenever 
we blame Pandora for what happened, we 
must not forget to shake our heads at Epim- 
etheus likewise. 

As Pandora raised the lid the cottage grew 
very dark and dismal, for the black cloud had 
now swept quite over the sun and seemed to 
have buried it alive. There had, for a little 
while past, been a low growling and mutter- 
ing, which all at once broke into a heavy peal 
of thunder. But Pandora, heeding nothing of 
all this, lifted the lid nearly upright and looked 
inside. It seemed as if a sudden swarm of 
winged creatures brushed past her, taking 
flight out of the box, while at the same instant 
she heard the voice of Epimetheus with a 
lamentable tone, as if he were in pain. 

“Oh, I am stung!” cried he. “I am stung! 


118 


A WONDER BOOK. 


Naughty Pandora! why have you opened this 
wicked box?” 

Pandora let fall the lid, and, starting up, 
looked about her to see what had befallen 
Epimetheus. The thundercloud had so dark- 
ened the room that she could not very clearly 
discern what was in it. But she heard a dis- 
agreeable buzzing, as if a great many huge 
flies or gigantic mosquitoes, or those insects 
which we call dor-bugs and pinching-dogs, 
were darting about. And as her eyes grew 
more accustomed to the imperfect light she 
saw a crowd of ugly little shapes with bats’ 
wings, looking abominably spiteful, and armed 
with terribly long stings in their tails. It was 
one of these that had stung Epimetheus. Nor 
was it a great while before Pandora herself 
began to scream in no less pain and affright 
than her playfellow, and making a vast deal 
more hubbub about it. An odious little mon- 
ster had settled on her forehead, and would 
have stung her, I know not how deeply, if 
Epimetheus had not run and brushed it away. 

Now, if you wish to know what these ugly 
things might be which had made their escape 
out of the box, I must tell you that they were 
the whole family of earthly Troubles. There 
were evil Passions; there were a great many 


A WONDER BOOK. 


119 


species of Cares ; there were more than a hun- 
dred and fifty Sorrows ; there were Diseases in 
a vast number of miserable and painful shapes ; 
there were more kinds of Naughtiness than it 
would be of any use to talk about. In short, 
everything that has since afflicted the souls and 
bodies of mankind had been shut up in the 
mysterious box and given to Epimetheus and 
Pandora to be kept safely, in order that the 
happy children of the world might never be 
molested by them. Had they been faithful to 
their trust, all would have gone well. No 
grown person would ever have been sad, nor 
any child have had cause to shed a single tear 
from that hour until this moment. 

But — and you may see by this how a wrong 
act of any one mortal is a calamity to the whole 
world — by Pandora’s lifting the lid of that 
miserable box, and by the fault of Epimetheus, 
too, in not preventing her, these Troubles have 
obtained a foothold among us, and do not seem 
very likely to be driven away in a hurry. For 
it was impossible, as you will easily guess, that 
the two children should keep the ugly swarm 
in their own little cottage. On the contrary, 
the first thing that they did was to fling open 
the doors and windows in hopes of getting rid 
of them; and, sure enough, away flew the 


120 


A WONDER BOOK. 


winged Troubles all abroad, and so pestered 
and tormented the small people everywhere 
about that none of them so much as smiled for 
many days afterward. And, what was very 
singular, all the flowers and dewy blossoms on 
earth, not one of which had hitherto faded, now 
began to droop and shed their leaves after a 
day or two. The children, moreover, who 
before seemed immortal in their childhood, 
now grew older day by day, and came soon to 
be youths and maidens, and men and women 
by and by, and aged people before they 
dreamed of such a thing. 

Meanwhile the naughty Pandora and hardly 
less naughty Epimetheus remained in their 
cottage. Both of them had been grievously 
stung, and were in a good deal of pain, which 
seemed the more intolerable to them because it 
was the very first pain that had ever been felt 
since the world began. Of course they were 
entirely unaccustomed to it, and could have no 
idea what it meant. Besides all this, they 
were in exceedingly bad humor both with 
themselves and with one another. In order 
to indulge it to the utmost, Epimetheus sat 
down sullenly in a corner with his back toward 
Pandora, while Pandora flung herself upon the 
floor and rested her head on the fatal and 


A WONDER BOOK. 


121 


abominable box. She was crying bitterly and 
sobbing as if her heart would break. 

Suddenly there was a gentle little tap on the 
inside of the lid. 

“What can that be?” cried Pandora, lifting 
her head. 

But either Epimetheus had not heard the 
tap or was too much out of humor to notice it. 
At any rate, he made no answer. 

“You are very unkind,” said Pandora, sob- 
bing anew, “not to speak to me.” 

Again the tap! It sounded like the tiny 
knuckles of a fairy’s hand knocking lightly and 
playfully on the inside of the box. 

“Who are you?” asked Pandora, with a little 
of her former curiosity. “Who are you, inside 
of this naughty box?” 

A sweet little voice spoke from within : 

“Only lift the lid and you shall see.” 

“No, no!” answered Pandora, again begin- 
ning to sob; “I have had enough of lifting the 
lid! You are inside of the box, naughty crea- 
ture, and there you shall stay! There are 
plenty of your ugly brothers and sisters already 
flying about the world. You need never think 
that I shall be so foolish as to let you out.” 

She looked toward Epimetheus as she spoke, 
perhaps expecting that he would commend her 


122 


A WONDER BOOK. 


for her wisdom. But the sullen boy only mut- 
tered that she was wise a little too late. 

“Ah,” said the sweet little voice again, “you 
had much better let me out. I am not like 
those naughty creatures that have stings in 
their tails. They are no brothers and sisters 
of mine, as you would see at once if you were 
only to get a glimpse of me. Come, come, my 
pretty Pandora ! I am sure you will let me 
out!” 

And, indeed, there was a kind of cheerful 
witchery in the tone that made it almost impos- 
sible to refuse anything which this little voice 
asked. Pandora’s heart had insensibly grown 
lighter at every word that came from within 
the box. Epimetheus too, though still in a 
corner, had turned half round, and seemed to 
be in rather better spirits than before. 

“My dear Epimetheus,” cried Pandora, 
“have you heard this little voice?” 

“Yes, to be sure I have,” answered he, but 
in no very good humor as yet. “And what of 
it?” 

“Shall I lift the lid again?” asked Pandora. 

“Just as you please,” said Epimetheus. 
“You have done so much mischief already that 
perhaps you may as well do a little more. One 
other Trouble, in such a swarm as you have 


A WONDER BOOK. 


123 


set adrift about the world, can make no very 
great difference.” 

“You might speak a little more kindly,” 
murmured Pandora, wiping her eyes. 

“Ah, naughty boy!” cried the little voice 
within the box in an arch and laughing tone. 
“He knows he is longing to see me. Come, 
my dear Pandora, lift up the lid. I am in a 
great hurry to comfort you. Only let me have 
some fresh air, and you shall soon see that 
matters are not quite so dismal as you think 
them. ’ ’ 

“Epimetheus,” exclaimed Pandora, “come 
what may, I am resolved to open the box. ’ ’ 

“And, as the lid seems very heavy,” cried 
Epimetheus, running across the room, “I will 
help you.” 

So, with one consent, the two children again 
lifted the lid. Out flew a sunny and smiling 
little personage, and hovered about the room, 
throwing a light wherever she went. Have 
you never made the sunshine dance into dark 
corners by reflecting it from a bit of looking- 
glass? Well, so looked the winged cheerful- 
ness of this fairy-like stranger amid the gloom 
of the cottage. She flew to Epimetheus and 
laid the least touch of her finger on the in- 
flamed spot where the Trouble had stung him, 


124 


A WONDER BOOK. 


and immediately the anguish of it was gone. 
Then she kissed Pandora on the forehead, and 
her hurt was cured likewise. 

After performing these good offices the 
bright stranger fluttered sportively over the 
children’s heads, and looked so sweetly at them 
that they both began to think it not so very 
much amiss to have opened the box, since 
otherwise their cheery guest must have been 
kept a prisoner among those naughty imps with 
stings in their tails. 

“Pray who are you, beautiful creature?” 
inquired Pandora. 

“I am to be called Hope,” answered the 
sunshiny figure. “And because I am such a 
cheery little body I was packed into the box to 
make amends to the human race for that 
swarm of ugly Troubles which are destined 
to be let loose among them. Never fear! we 
shall do pretty well in spite of them all. ’ ’ 
“Your wings are colored like the rainbow!” 
exclaimed Pandora. ‘ ‘ How very beautiful ! ’ ’ 
“Yes, they are like the rainbow, ” said Hope, 
“because, glad as my nature is, I am partly 
made of tears as well as smiles. ” 

“And will you stay with us,” asked Epime- 
theus, “for ever and ever?” 

“As long as you need me,” said Hope with 


A WONDER BOOK. 


125 


her pleasant smile, “and that will be as long as 
you live in the world. I promise never to 
desert you. There may come times and sea- 
sons, now and then, when you will think that I 
have utterly vanished. But again and again 
and again, when perhaps you least dream of it, 
you shall see the glimmer of my wings on the 
ceiling of your cottage. Yes, my dear children, 
and I know something very good and beautiful 
that is to be given to you hereafter. ” 

“Oh, tell us!” they exclaimed. “Tell us 
what it is!” 

“Do not ask me,” replied Hope, putting her 
finger on her rosy mouth. “But do not despair, 
even if it should never happen while you live 
on this earth. Trust in my promise, for it is 
true.” 

“We do trust you!” cried Epimetheus and 
Pandora, both in one breath. 

And so they did ; and not only they, but so 
has everybody trusted Hope that has since 
been alive. And, to tell you the truth, I can- 
not help being glad (though, to be sure, it was 
an uncommonly naughty thing for her to do) — 
but I cannot help being glad that our foolish 
Pandora peeped into the box. No doubt — no 
doubt — the Troubles are still flying about the 
world, and have increased in multitude, rather 


126 


A WONDER BOOK. 


than lessened, and are a very ugly set of imps, 
and carry most venomous stings in their tails. 
I have felt them already, and expect to feel 
them more as I grow older. But then that 
lovely and lightsome little figure of Hope! 
What in the world could we do without her? 
Hope spiritualizes the earth; Hope makes it 
awaysnew; and even in the earth’s best and 
brightest aspect Hope shows it to be only the 
shadow of an infinite bliss hereafter! 


A WONDER BOOK. 


127 


TANGLEWOOD PLAYROOM. 

AFTER THE STORY. 

“Primrose,” asked Eustace, pinching her 
ear, “how do you like my little Pandora? 
Don’t you think her the exact picture of your- 
self? But you would not have hesitated half 
so long about opening the box. ” 

“Then I should have been well punished 
for my naughtiness,” retorted Primrose 
smartly, “for the first thing to pop out after 
the lid was lifted would have been Mr. Eus- 
tace Bright in the shape of a Trouble.” 

“Cousin Eustace,” said Sweet Fern, “did 
the box hold all the trouble that has ever come 
into the world?” 

“Every mite of it!” answered Eustace. 
“This very snowstorm which has spoiled my 
skating was packed up there.” 

“And how big was the box,” asked Sweet 
Fern. 

“Why, perhaps three feet long,” said Eus- 
tace, “two feet wide, and two feet and a half 
high.” 


128 


A WONDER BOOK. 


“Ah,” said the child, “you are making fun 
of me, Cousin Eustace ! I know there is not 
trouble enough in the world to fill such a 
great box as that. As for the snowstorm, it is 
no trouble at all, but a pleasure, so it could 
not have been in the box.” 

“Hear the child!” cried Primrose with an 
air of superiority. “How little he knows 
about the troubles of this world ! Poor fellow ! 
He will be wiser when he has seen as much of 
life as I have. ’ ’ 

So saying, she began to skip the rope. 

Meantime the day was drawing toward its 
close. Out of doors the scene certainly looked 
dreary. There was a gray drift far and wide 
through the gathering twilight, the earth was 
as pathless as the air, and the bank of snow 
over the steps of the porch proved that nobody 
had entered or gone out for a good many hours 
past. Had there been only one child at the 
window of Tanglewood gazing at this wintry 
prospect, it would perhaps have made him sad. 
But half a dozen children together, though they 
cannot quite turn the world into a paradise, 
may defy old Winter and all his storms to put 
them out of spirits. Eustace Bright, moreover, 


A WONDER BOOK. 


129 


on the spur of the moment invented several 
new kinds of play, which kept them all in a 
roar of merriment till bedtime, and served for 
the next stormy day besides. 



9 Wonder Book 


130 


A WONDER BOOK. 


TANGLEWOOD FIRESIDE. 

INTRODUCTORY TO “THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES.” 

The snowstorm lasted another day, but what 
became of it afterward I cannot possibly im- 
agine. At any rate, it entirely cleared away 
during the night, and when the sun arose the 
next morning it shone brightly down on as 
bleak a tract of hill-country here in Berkshire 
as could be seen anywhere in the world. The 
frost-work had so covered the window-panes 
that it was hardly possible to get a glimpse at 
the scenery outside. But while waiting for 
breakfast the small populace of Tanglewood 
had scratched peep-holes with their finger- 
nails, and saw with vast delight that — unless it 
were one or two bare patches on a precipitous 
hillside or the gray effect of the snow inter- 
mingled with the black pine forest — all nature 
was as white as a sheet. How exceedingly 
pleasant ! And, to make it all the better, it was 
cold enough to nip one’s nose short off! If 
people have but life enough in them to bear it, 
there is nothing that so raises the spirits and 


A WONDER BOOK. 


131 


makes the blood ripple and dance so nimbly, 
like a brook down the slope of a hill, as a 
bright, hard frost. 

No sooner was breakfast over than the 
whole party, well muffled in furs and woolens, 
floundered forth into the midst of the snow. 
W ell, what a day of frosty sport was this ! They 
slid down hill into the valley a hundred times, 
nobody knows how far ; and, to make it all the 
merrier, upsetting their sledges and tumbling 
head over heels quite as often as they came 
safely to the bottom. And once Eustace Bright 
took Periwinkle, Sweet Fern, and Squash- 
blossom on the sledge with him, by way of in- 
suring a safe passage, and down they went, full 
speed. But, behold ! halfway down the sledge 
hit against a hidden stump and flung all four of 
its passengers into a heap, and on gathering 
themselves up there was no little Squash-blos- 
som to be found ! Why, what could have be- 
come of the child ! And while they were won- 
dering and staring about, up started Squash- 
blossom out of a snowbank with the reddest 
face you ever saw, and looking as if a large 
scarlet flower had suddenly sprouted up in 
midwinter. Then there was a great laugh. 

When they had grown tired of sliding down 
hill, Eustace set the children to digging a cave 


132 


A WONDER BOOK. 


in the biggest snow-drift that they could find. 
Unluckily, just as it was completed and the 
party had squeezed themselves into the hollow 
down came the roof upon their heads and 
buried every soul of them alive ! The next 
moment, up popped all their little heads out 
of the ruins, and the tall student’s head in the 
midst of them, looking hoary and venerable 
with the snow-dust that had got amongst his 
brown curls. And then, to punish Cousin 
Eustace for advising them to dig such a tum- 
ble-down cavern, the children attacked him in 
a body, and so be-pelted him with snowballs 
that he was fain to take to his heels. 

So he ran away and went into the woods, 
and thence to the margin of Shadow Brook, 
where he could hear the streamlet grumbling 
along under great overhanging banks of snow 
and ice which would scarcely let it see the 
light of day. There were adamantine icicles 
glittering around all its little cascades. Thence 
he strolled to the shore of the lake, and beheld 
a white untrodden plain before him, stretching 
from his own feet to the foot of Monument 
Mountain. And, it being now almost sunset, 
Eustace thought that he had never beheld any- 
thing so fresh and beautiful as the scene. He 
was glad that the children were not with him, 


A WONDER BOOK. 


133 


for their lively spirits and tumble- about activity 
would quite have chased away his higher and 
graver mood, so that he would merely have 
been merry (as he had already been the whole 
day long), and would not have known the love- 
liness of the winter sunset among the hills. 

When the sun was fairly down our friend Eus- 
tace went home to eat his supper. After the 
meal was over he betook himself to the study, 
with a purpose, I rather imagine, to write an 
ode or two or three sonnets or verses of some 
kind or other in praise of the purple and golden 
clouds which he had seen around the setting 
sun. But before he had hammered out the 
very first rhyme the door opened and Primrose 
and Periwinkle made their appearance. 

“Go away, children! I can’t be troubled 
with you now!” cried the student, looking over 
his shoulder with the pen between his fingers. 
“What in the world do you want here? I 
thought you were all in bed. ’ ’ 

“Hear him, Periwinkle, trying to talk like a 
grown man!” said Primrose. “And he seems 
to forget that I am now thirteen years old, and 
may sit up almost as late as I please. But, 
Cousin Eustace, you must put off your airs and 
come with us to the drawing-room. The 
children have talked so much about your 


134 


A WONDER BOOK. 


stories that my father wishes to hear one of 
them, in order to judge whether they are likely 
to do any mischief. ’ ’ 

“Poh, poh, Primrose!” exclaimed the 
student, rather vexed. ‘‘I don’t believe I can 
tell one of my stories in the presence of grown 
people. Besides, your father is a classical 
scholar; not that I am much afraid of his 
scholarship, neither, for I doubt not it is as 
rusty as an old case-knife by this time. But 
then he will be sure to quarrel with the admir- 
able nonsense that I put into these stories out 
of my own head, and which makes the great 
charm of the matter for children like yourself. 
No man of fifty who has read the classical 
myths in his youth can possibly understand my 
merit as a re-inventor and improver of them.” 

“All this may be very true,” said Primrose, 
“but come you must. My father will not open 
his book nor will mamma open the piano till 
you have given us some of your nonsense, as 
you very correctly call it. So be a good boy 
and come along. ’ ’ 

Whatever he might pretend, the student was 
rather glad than otherwise, on second thoughts, 
to catch at the opportunity of proving to Mr. 
Pringle what an excellent faculty he had in 
modernizing the myths of ancient times. 


A WONDER BOOK. 


135 


Until twenty years of age a young man may, 
indeed, be rather bashful about showing his 
poetry and his prose, but, for all that, he is 
pretty apt to think that these very productions 
would place him at the tip-top of literature if 
they once could be known. Accordingly, with- 
out much more resistance, Eustace suffered 
Primrose and Periwinkle to drag him into the 
drawing-room. 

It was a large, handsome apartment with a 
semicircular window at one end, in the recess 
of which stood a marble copy of Greenough’s 
“Angel and Child.” On one side of the 
fireplace there were many shelves of books 
gravely but richly bound. The white light of 
the astral lamp and the red glow of the bright 
coal fire made the room brilliant and cheerful, 
and before the fire, in a deep armchair, sat Mr. 
Pringle, looking just fit to be seated in such a 
chair and in such a room. He was a tall and 
quite a handsome gentleman with a bald brow, 
and was always so nicely dressed that even 
Eustace Bright never liked to enter his pres- 
ence without at least pausing at the threshold 
to settle his shirt-collar. But now, as Prim- 
rose had hold of one of his hands and Periwin- 
kle of the other, he was forced to make his 
appearance with a rough-and-tumble sort of 


136 


A WONDER BOOK. 


look, as if he had been rolling all day in a 
snowbank. And so he had. 

Mr. Pringle turned toward the student be- 
nignly enough, but in a way that made him 
feel how uncombed and unbrushed he was, and 
how uncombed and unbrushed, likewise, were 
his mind and thoughts. 

“Eustace,” said Mr. Pringle with a smile, 
“I find that you are producing a great sensa- 
tion among the little public of Tanglewood by 
the exercise of your gifts of narrative. Prim- 
rose here, as the little folks choose to call her, 
and the rest of the children have been so loud 
in praise of your stories that Mrs. Pringle and 
myself are really curious to hear a specimen. 
It would be so much the more gratifying to 
myself as the stories appear to be an attempt 
to render the fables of classical antiquity into 
the idiom of modern fancy and feeling. At 
least, so I judge from a few of the incidents 
which have come to me at second hand. ’ ’ 

“You are not exactly the auditor that I 
should have chosen, sir,” observed the student, 
“for fantasies of this nature.” 

“Possibly not,” replied Mr. Pringle. “I sus- 
pect, however, that a young author’s most use- 
ful critic is precisely the one whom he would 


A WONDER BOOK. 


137 


be least apt to choose. Pray oblige me, there- 
fore. ’ * 

“Sympathy, methinks, should have some 
little share in the critic’s qualifications,” mur- 
mured Eustace Bright. “However, sir, if you 
will find patience I will find stories. But be 
kind enough to remember that I am addressing 
myself to the imagination and sympathies of 
the children, not to your own.” 

Accordingly, the student snatched hold of 
the first theme which presented itself. It was 
suggested by a plate of apples that he hap- 
pened to spy on the mantelpiece. 


10 Wonder Book 


138 


A WONDER BOOK. 


THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES. 

Did you ever hear of the golden apples that 
grew in the garden of the Hesperides? Ah, 
those were such apples as would bring a great 
price by the bushel if any of them could be 
found growing in the orchards of nowadays! 
But there is not, I suppose, a graft of that 
wonderful fruit on a single tree in the wide 
world. Not so much as a seed of those apples 
exists any longer. 

And, even in the old, old, half-forgotten 
times, before the garden of the Hesperides was 
overrun with weeds, a great many people 
doubted whether there could be real trees that 
bore apples of solid gold upon their branches. 
All had heard of them, but nobody remem- 
bered to have seen any. Children, neverthe- 
less, used to listen open-mouthed to stories of 
the golden apple tree, and resolved to discover 
it when they should be big enough. Adventur- 
ous young men who desired to do a braver 
thing than any of their fellows set out in quest 
of this fruit. Many of them returned no more ; 


A WONDER BOOK. 


139 


none of them brought back the apples. No 
wonder that they found it impossible to gather 
them! It is said that there was a dragon 
beneath the tree with a hundred terrible heads, 
fifty of which were always on the watch while 
the other fifty slept. 

In my opinion, it was hardly worth running 
so much risk for the sake of a solid golden 
apple. Had the apples been sweet, mellow, 
and juicy, indeed, that would be another mat- 
ter. There might have been some sense in 
trying to get at them, in spite of the hundred- 
headed dragon. 

But, as I have already told you, it was quite 
a common thing with young persons, when tired 
of too much peace and rest, to go in search of 
the garden of the Hesperides. And once the 
adventure was undertaken by a hero who had 
enjoyed very little peace or rest since he came 
into the world. At the time of which I am 
going to speak he was wandering through the 
pleasant land of Italy, with a mighty club in 
his hand and a bow and quiver slung across his 
shoulders. He was wrapt in the skin of the 
biggest and fiercest lion that ever had been 
seen, and which he himself had killed; and 
though, on the whole, he was kind and gener- 
ous and noble, there was a good deal of the 


140 


A WONDER BOOK. 


lion’s fierceness in his heart. As he went on 
his way he continually inquired whether that 
were the right road to the famous garden. 
But none of the country people knew anything 
about the matter, and many looked as if they 
would have laughed at the question if the 
stranger had not carried so very big a club. 

So he journeyed on and on, still making the 
same inquiry, until at last he came to the brink 
of a river where some beautiful young women 
sat twining wreaths of flowers. 

“Can you tell me, pretty maidens,” asked 
the stranger, “whether this is the right way to 
the garden of the Hesperides?” 

The young women had been having a fine 
time together weaving the flowers into wreaths 
and crowning one another’s heads. And there 
seemed to be a kind of magic in the touch of 
their fingers that made the flowers more fresh 
and dewy, and of brighter hues and sweeter 
fragrance, while they played with them than 
even when they had been growing on their 
native stems. But on hearing the stranger’s 
question they dropped all their flowers on the 
grass and gazed at him with astonishment. 

“The garden of the Hesperides!” cried one. 
“We thought mortals had been weary of seek- 
ing it after so many disappointments. And 


A WONDER BOOK. 


141 


pray, adventurous traveler, what do you want 
there?” 

“A certain king, who is my cousin,” replied 
he, ‘‘has ordered me to get him three of the 
golden apples.” 

“Most of the young men who go in quest of 
these apples, ’ ’ observed another of the damsels, 
“desire to obtain them for themselves or to 
present them to some fair maiden whom they 
love. Do you, then, love this king, your cou- 
sin, so very much?” 

“Perhaps not,” replied the stranger, sighing. 
“He has often been severe and cruel to me. 
But it is my destiny to obey him.” 

“And do you know, ” asked the damsel who 
had first spoken, “that a terrible dragon with a 
hundred heads keeps watch under the golden 
apple tree?” 

“I know it well,” answered the stranger 
calmly. “But from my cradle upward.it has 
been my business, and almost my pastime, to 
deal with serpents and dragons. ’ ’ 

The young women looked at his massive club 
and at the shaggy lion’s skin which he wore, 
and likewise at his heroic limbs and figure, and 
they whispered to each other that the stranger 
appeared to be one who might reasonably 
expect to perform deeds far beyond the might 


142 


A WONDER BOOK. 


of other men. But then the dragon with a 
hundred heads ! What mortal, even if he pos- 
sessed a hundred lives, could hope to escape 
the fangs of such a monster? So kind-hearted 
were the maidens that they could not bear to 
see this brave and handsome traveler attempt 
what was so very dangerous, and devote him- 
self most probably to become a meal for the 
dragon’s hundred ravenous mouths. 

“Go back!” cried they all; “go back to your 
own home! Your mother, beholding you safe 
and sound, will shed tears of joy; and what can 
she do more should you win ever so great a vic- 
tory? No matter for the golden apples! No 
matter for the king, your cruel cousin! We 
do not wish the dragon with the hundred heads 
to eat you up. ’ ’ 

The stranger seemed to grow impatient at 
these remonstrances. He carelessly lifted his 
mighty club and let it fall upon a rock that lay 
half-buried in the earth near by. With the 
force of that idle blow the great rock was shat- 
tered all to pieces. It cost the stranger no 
more effort to achieve this feat of a giant’s 
strength than for one of the young maidens to 
touch her sister’s rosy cheek with a flower. 

“Do you not believe,” said he, looking at 
the damsels with a smile, “that such a blow 


A WONDER BOOK. 


143 


would have crushed one of the dragon’s hun- 
dred heads?” 

Then he sat down on the grass and told them 
the story of his life, or as much of it as he 
could remember, from the day when he was 
first cradled in a warrior’s brazen shield. 
While he lay there two immense serpents came 
gliding over the floor and opened their hideous 
jaws to devour him, and he, a baby of a few 
months old, had griped one of the fierce snakes 
in each of his little fists and strangled them to 
death. When he was but a stripling he had 
killed a huge lion, almost as big as the one 
whose vast and shaggy hide he now wore upon 
his shoulders. The next thing that he had 
done was to fight a battle with an ugly sort of 
monster called a Hydra, which had no less 
than nine heads, and exceedingly sharp teeth 
in every one of them. 

“But the dragon of the Hesperides, you 
know,” observed one of the damsels, “has a 
hundred heads!” 

“Nevertheless,” replied the stranger, “I 
would rather fight two such dragons than a 
single Hydra. For as fast as I cut off a head 
two others grew in its place ; and, besides, there 
was one of the heads that could not possibly be 
killed, but kept biting, as fiercely as ever, long 


144 


A WONDER BOOK. 


after it was cut off. So I was forced to bury it 
under a stone, where it is doubtless alive to 
this very day. But the Hydra’s body and its 
eight other heads will never do any further 
mischief.” 

The damsels, judging that the story was 
likely to last a good while, had been preparing 
a repast of bread and grapes, that the stranger 
might refresh himself in the intervals of his 
talk. They took pleasure in helping him to 
this simple food, and now and then one of them 
would put a sweet grape between her rosy lips, 
lest it should make him bashful to eat alone. 

The traveler proceeded to tell how he had 
chased a very swift stag for a twelvemonth 
together without ever stopping to take breath, 
and had at last caught it by the antlers and 
carried it home alive. And he had fought with 
a very odd race of people, half horses and half 
men, and had put them all to death, from a 
sense of duty, in order that their ugly figures 
might never be seen any more. Besides all 
this, he took to himself great credit for having 
cleaned out a stable. 

“Do you call that a wonderful exploit?” 
asked one of the young maidens with a smile. 
‘‘Any clown in the country has done as much. ” 

‘‘Had it been an ordinary stable,” replied 



“ He carelessly let it fall upon a rock.” — Page 142. 

Wonder Book. 












A WONDER BOOK. 


145 


the stranger, “I should not have mentioned it. 
But this was so gigantic a task that it would 
have taken me all my life to perform it if I had 
not luckily thought of turning the channel of 
a river through the stable door. That did the 
business in a very short time. ” 

Seeing how earnestly his fair auditors lis- 
tened, he next told them how he had shot some 
monstrous birds, and had caught a wild bull 
alive and let him go again, and had tamed a 
number of very wild horses, and had conquered 
Hippolyta, the warlike queen of the Amazons. 
He mentioned, likewise, that he had taken off 
Hippolyta’s enchanted girdle and had given it 
to the daughter of his cousin the king. 

“Was it the girdle of Venus,” inquired the 
prettiest of the maidens, “which makes women 
beautiful?” 

“No,” answered the stranger; “it had for- 
merly been the sword-belt of Mars, and it can 
only make the wearer valiant and courageous. ’ * 

“An old sword-belt!” cried the damsel, toss- 
ing her head. “Then I should not care about 
liaving it.” 

“You are right,” said the stranger. 

Going on with his wonderful narrative, he 
informed the maidens that as strange an adven- 
ture as ever happened was when he fought 
10 


146 


A WONDER BOOK. 


with Geryon, the six-legged man. This was a 
very odd and frightful sort of figure, as you 
may well believe. Any person looking at his 
tracks in the sand or snow would suppose that 
three sociable companions had been walking 
along together. On hearing his footsteps at a 
little distance it was no more than reasonable 
to judge that several people must be coming. 
But it was only the strange man Geryon clat- 
tering onward with his six legs. 

Six legs and one gigantic body ! Certainly 
he must have been a very queer monster to 
look at ; and, my stars, what a waste of shoe- 
leather ! 

When the stranger had finished the story of 
his adventures he looked around at the atten- 
tive faces of the maidens. 

“Perhaps you may have heard of me before,” 
said he modestly. “My name is Hercules." 

“We had already guessed it," replied the 
maidens, “for your wonderful deeds are known 
all over the world. We do not think it strange 
any longer that you should set out in quest of 
the golden apples of the Hesperides. Come, 
sisters, let us crown the hero with flowers!" 

Then they flung beautiful wreaths over his 
stately head and mighty shoulders, so that the 
lion’s skin was almost entirely covered with 


A WONDER BOOK. 


147 


roses. They took possession of his ponderous 
club, and so entwined it about with the bright- 
est, softest, and most fragrant blossoms that 
not a finger’s breadth of its oaken substance 
could be seen. It looked all like a huge bunch 
of flowers. Lastly, they joined hands and 
danced around him, chanting words which 
became poetry of their own accord and grew 
into a choral song in honor of the illustrious 
Hercules. 

And Hercules was rejoiced, as any other 
hero would have been, to know that these fair 
young girls had heard of the valiant deeds 
which it had cost him so much toil and danger 
to achieve. But still he was not satisfied. He 
could not think that what he had already done 
was worthy of so much honor while there 
remained any bold or difficult adventure to be 
undertaken. 

“Dear maidens,’’ said he, when they paused 
to take breath, “now that you know my name, 
will you not tell me how I am to reach the gar- 
den of the Hesperides?’’ 

“Ah! must you go so soon?’’ they exclaimed. 
“You, that have performed so many wonders 
and spent such a toilsome life, cannot you con- 
tent yourself to repose a little while on the 
margin of this peaceful river?’* 


143 


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Hercules shook his head. 

“I must depart now,” said he. 

“We will then give you the best directions 
we can,” replied the damsels. “You must go 
to the seashore and find out the Old One, and 
compel him to inform you where the golden 
apples are to be found. ’ ’ 

“The Old One!” repeated Hercules, laugh- 
ing at this odd name. “And, pray, who may 
the Old One be?” 

“Why, the Old Man of the Sea, to be sure,” 
answered one of the damsels. “He has fifty 
daughters, whom some people call very beauti- 
ful, but we do not think it proper to be 
acquainted with them, because they have sea- 
green hair and taper away like fishes. You 
must talk with this Old Man of the Sea. He 
is a seafaring person, and knows all about the 
garden of Hesperides, for it is situated in an 
island which he is often in the habit of visit- 
ing.” 

Hercules then asked whereabouts the Old 
One was most likely to be met with. When 
the damsels had informed him he thanked them 
for all their kindness — for the bread and grapes 
with which they had fed him, the lovely flowers 
with which they had crowned him, and the 
songs and dances wherewith they had done 


A WONDER BOOK. 


149 


him honor; and he thanked them most of all 
for telling him the right way — and immediately 
set forth upon his journey. 

But before he was out of hearing one of the 
maidens called after him. 

“Keep fast hold of the Old One when you 
catch him!” cried she, smiling and lifting her 
finger to make the caution more impressive. 
“Do not be astonished at anything that may 
happen. Only hold him fast, and he will tell 
you what you wish to know. ’ ’ 

Hercules again thanked her and pursued his 
way, while the maidens resumed their pleasant 
labor of making flower-wreaths. They talked 
about the hero long after he was gone. 

“We will crown him with the loveliest of our 
garlands,” said they, “when he returns hither 
with the three golden apples after slaying the 
dragon with a hundred heads. ’ ’ 

Meanwhile, Hercules traveled constantly 
onward over hill and dale and through the sol- 
itary woods. Sometimes he swung his club 
aloft and splintered a mighty oak with a down- 
right blow. His mind was so full of the giants 
and monsters with whom it was the business 
of his life to fight that perhaps he mistook the 
great tree for a giant or a monster. And so 
eager was Hercules to achieve what he had 


150 


A WONDER BOOK. 


undertaken that he almost regretted to have 
spent so much time with the damsels, wasting 
idle breath upon the story of his adventures. 
But thus it always is with persons who are 
destined to perform great things. What they 
have already done seems less than nothing — 
what they have taken in hand to do seems 
worth toil, danger, and life itself. 

Persons who happened to be passing through 
the forest must have been affrighted to see him 
smite the trees with his great club. With but 
a single blow the trunk was riven as by the 
stroke of lightning and the broad boughs came 
rustling and crashing down. 

Hastening forward without ever pausing or 
looking behind, he by and by heard the sea 
roaring at a distance. At this sound he 
increased his speed, and soon came to a beach 
where the great surf- waves tumbled them- 
selves upon the hard sand in a long line of 
snowy foam. At one end of the beach, how- 
ever, there was a pleasant spot where some 
green shrubbery clambered up a cliff, making 
its rocky face look soft and beautiful. A car- 
pet of verdant grass, largely intermixed with 
sweet-smelling clover, covered the narrow 
space between the bottom of the cliff and the 


A WONDER BOOK. 


151 


sea. And what should Hercules espy there 
but an old man fast asleep? 

But was it really and truly an old man? 
Certainly, at first sight, it looked very like one, 
but on closer inspection it rather seemed to be 
some kind of a creature that lived in the sea. 
For on his legs and arms there were scales such 
as fishes have; he was web-footed and web- 
fingered, after the fashion of a duck ; and his 
long beard, being of a greenish tinge, had more 
the appearance of a tuft of seaweed than of an 
ordinary beard. Have you never seen a stick 
of timber that has been long tossed about by 
the waves, and has got all overgrown with 
barnacles, and, at last drifting ashore, seems 
to have been thrown up from the very deepest 
bottom of the sea? Well, the old man would 
have put you in mind of just such a wave-tost 
spar. But Hercules, the instant he set eyes 
on this strange figure, was convinced that it 
could be no other than the Old One who was 
to direct him on his way. 

Yes, it was the selfsame Old Man of the Sea 
whom the hospitable maidens had talked to him 
about. Thanking his stars for the lucky acci- 
dent of finding the old fellow asleep, Hercules 
stole on tiptoe toward him and caught him by 
the arm and leg. 


152 


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“Tell me,” cried he, before the Old One was 
well awake, “which is the way to the garden 
of the Hesperides?” 

As you may easily imagine, the Old Man of 
the Sea awoke in a fright. But his astonish- 
ment could hardly have been greater than was 
that of Hercules the next moment For, all 
of a sudden, the Old One seemed to disappear 
out of his grasp, and he found himself holding 
a stag by the fore and hind leg! But still he 
kept fast hold. Then the stag disappeared, 
and in its stead there was a seabird, fluttering 
and screaming while Hercules clutched it by 
the wing and claw. But the bird could not get 
away. Immediately afterward there was an 
ugly three-headed dog, which growled and 
barked at Hercules and snapped fiercely at the 
hands by which he held him ! But Hercules 
would not let him go. In another minute, 
instead of the three-headed dog, what should 
appear but Geryon, the six-legged man-mon- 
ster, kicking at Hercules with five of his legs 
in order to get the remaining one at liberty ! 
But Hercules held on. By and by no Geryon 
was there, but a huge snake like one of those 
which Hercules had strangled in his babyhood, 
only a hundred times as big; and it twisted 
and twined about the hero’s neck and body, 


A WONDER BOOK. 


153 


and threw its tail high into the air, and opened 
its deadly jaws as if to devour him outright, 
so that it was really a very terrible spectacle. 
But Hercules was no whit disheartened, and 
squeezed the great snake so tightly that he 
soon began to hiss with pain. 

You must understand that the Old Man of 
the Sea, though he generally looked so much 
like the wave-beaten figure-head of a vessel, 
had the power of assuming any shape he 
pleased. When he found himself so roughly 
seized by Hercules, he had been in hopes of put- 
ting him into such surprise and terror by these 
magical transformations that the hero would be 
glad to let him go. If Hercules had relaxed 
his grasp, the Old One would certainly have 
plunged down to the very bottom of the sea, 
whence he would not soon have given himself 
the trouble of coming up in order to answer 
any impertinent questions. Ninety-nine peo- 
ple out of a hundred, I suppose, would have 
been frightened out of their wits by the very 
first of his ugly shapes, and would have taken 
to their heels at once. For one of the hardest 
things in this world is to see the difference be- 
tween real dangers and imaginary ones. 

But as Hercules held on so stubbornly, and 
only squeezed the Old One so much the tighter 


154 


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at every change of shape, and really put him 
to no small torture, he finally thought it best 
to reappear in his own figure. So there he was 
again, a fishy, scaly, web-footed sort of per- 
sonage with something like a tuft of seaweed 
at his chin. 

“Pray, what do you want with me?" cried 
the Old One as soon as he could take breath, 
for it is quite a tiresome affair to go through 
so many false shapes. “Why do you squeeze 
me so hard? Let me go this moment, or I 
shall begin to consider you an extremely un- 
civil person. ’ ’ 

“ My name is Hercules! ’’ roared the mighty 
stranger, “and you will never get out of my 
clutch until you tell me the nearest way to 
the garden of the Hesperides. " 

When the old fellow heard who it was that 
had caught him, he saw with half an eye that it 
would be necessary to tell him everything that 
he wanted to know. The Old One was an 
inhabitant of the sea, you must recollect, and 
roamed about everywhere, like other seafaring 
people. Of course he had often heard of the 
fame of Hercules, and of the wonderful things 
that he was constantly performing in various 
parts of the earth, and how determined he 
always was to accomplish whatever he under- 


A WONDER BOOK. 


155 


took. He therefore made no more attempts to 
escape, but told the hero how to find the gar- 
den of the Hesperides, and likewise warned 
him of many difficulties which must be over- 
come before he could arrive thither. 

“You must go on thus and thus,” said the 
Old Man of the Sea, after taking the points of 
the compass, “till you come in sight of a very 
tall giant who holds the sky on his shoulders. 
And the giant, if he happens to be in the 
humor, will tell you exactly where the garden 
of the Hesperides lies.” 

“And if the giant happens not to be in the 
humor,” remarked Hercules, balancing his 
club on the tip of his finger, “perhaps I shall 
find means to persuade him. ’ ’ 

Thanking the Old Man of the Sea, and beg- 
ging his pardon for having squeezed him so 
roughly, the hero resumed his journey. He 
met with a great many strange adventures, 
which would be well worth your hearing, if I 
had leisure to narrate them as minutely as 
they deserve. 

It was in this journey, if I mistake not, that 
he encountered a prodigious giant who was so 
wonderfully contrived by nature that every 
time he touched the earth he became ten times 
as strong as ever he had been before. His 


156 


A WONDER BOOK. 


name was Antaeus. You may see, plainly 
enough, that it was a very difficult business to 
fight with such a fellow, for as often as he got 
a knock-down blow, up he started again, 
stronger, fiercer, and abler to use his weapons 
than if his enemy had let him alone. Thus, 
the harder Hercules pounded the giant with 
his club, the farther he seemed from winning 
the victory. I have sometimes argued with 
such people, but never fought with one. The 
only way in which Hercules found it possible 
to finish the battle was by lifting Antaeus off 
his feet into the air, and squeezing and 
squeezing and squeezing him until finally the 
strength was quite squeezed out of his enor- 
mous body. 

When this affair was finished Hercules con- 
tinued his travels, and went to the land of 
Egypt, where he was taken prisoner, and 
would have been put to death if he had not 
slain the king of the country and made his es- 
cape. Passing through the deserts of Africa 
and going as fast as he could, he arrived at last 
on the shore of the great ocean. And here, 
unless he could walk on the crests of the bil- 
lows, it seemed as if his journey must needs 
be at an end. 

Nothing was before him save the foaming, 


A WONDER BOOK. 


157 


dashing, measureless ocean. But suddenly as 
he looked toward the horizon, he saw some- 
thing, a great way off, which he had not seen 
the moment before. It gleamed very brightly, 
almost as you may have beheld the round, 
golden disk of the sun when it rises or sets 
over the edge of the world. It evidently 
drew nearer, for at every instant this won- 
derful object became larger, and more lus- 
trous. At length it had come so nigh that 
Hercules discovered it to be an immense cup 
or bowl made either of gold or burnished brass. 
How it had got afloat upon the sea is more 
than I can tell you. There it was, at all 
events, rolling on the tumultuous billows, 
which tossed it up and down and heaved their 
foamy tops against its sides, but without ever 
throwing their spray over the brim. 

“I have seen many giants in my time , ” 
thought Hercules, “but never one that would 
need to drink his wine out of a cup like this.” 

And, true enough, what a cup it must have 
been ! It was as large — as large — but, in short, 
I am afraid to say how immeasurably large 
it was. To speak within bounds, it was ten 
times larger than a great mill-wheel, and, all 
of metal as it was, it floated over the heaving 
surges more lightly than an acorn-cup adown 


158 


A WONDER BOOK. 


the brook. The waves tumbled it onward until 
it grazed against the shore within a short dis- 
tance of the spot where Hercules was standing. 

As soon as this happened he knew what was 
to be done, for he had not gone through so 
many remarkable adventures without learning 
pretty well how to conduct himself whenever 
anything came to pass a little out of the com- 
mon rule. It was just as clear as daylight that 
this marvelous cup had been set adrift by 
some unseen power and guided hitherward in 
order to carry Hercules across the sea on his 
way to the garden of the Hesperides. Accord- 
ingly, without a moment’s delay he clambered 
over the brim and slid down inside, where, 
spreading out his lion’s skin, he proceeded to 
take a little repose. He had scarcely rested 
until now since he bade farewell to the dam- 
sels on the margin of the river. The waves 
dashed with a pleasant and ringing sound 
against the circumference of the hollow cup ; 
it rocked lightly to and fro, and the motion 
was so soothing that it speedily rocked Her- 
cules into an agreeable slumber. 

His nap had probably lasted a good while 
when the cup chanced to graze against a rock, 
and in consequence immediately resounded 
and reverberated through its golden or brazen 


A WONDER BOOK. 


159 


substance a hundred times as loudly as ever 
you heard a church-bell. The noise awoke 
Hercules, who instantly started up and gazed 
around him, wondering whereabouts he was. 
He was not long in discovering that the cup 
had floated across a great part of the sea, and 
was approaching the shore of what seemed to 
be an island. And on that island what do you 
think he saw? 

No. you will never guess it — not if you were 
to try fifty thousand times ! It positively 
appears to me that this was the most marvelous 
spectacle that had ever been seen by Her- 
cules in the whole course of his wonderful 
travels and adventures. It was a greater mar- 
vel than the Hydra with nine heads, which 
kept growing twice as fast as they were cut off ; 
greater than the six-legged man-monster; 
greater than Antaeus; greater than anything 
that was ever beheld by anybody before or 
since the days of Hercules, or than anything 
that remains to be beheld by travelers in all 
time to come. It was a giant! 

But such an intolerably big giant ! A giant 
as tall as a mountain ; so vast a giant that the 
clouds rested about his midst like a girdle, and 
hung like a hoary beard from his chin, and 
flitted before his huge eyes so that he could 


160 


A WONDER BOOK. 


neither see Hercules nor the golden cup in 
which he was voyaging. And, most wonder- 
ful of all, the giant held up his great hands 
and appeared to support the sky, which, so far 
as Hercules could discern through the clouds, 
was resting upon his head ! This does really 
seem almost too much to believe. 

Meanwhile the bright cup continued to 
float onward, and finally touched the strand. 
Just then a breeze wafted away the clouds 
from before the giant’s visage, and Hercules 
beheld it with all its enormous features — 
eyes each of them as big as yonder lake, a nose 
a mile long, and a mouth of the same width. 
It was a countenance terrible from its enor- 
mity of size, but disconsolate and weary, even 
as you may see the faces of many people now- 
adays who are compelled to sustain burdens 
above their strength. What the sky was to 
the giant, such are the cares of earth to those 
who let themselves be weighed down by them. 
And whenever men undertake what is beyond 
the just measure of their abilities they en- 
counter precisely such a doom as had befallen 
this poor giant. 

Poor fellow ! He had evidently stood there 
a long while. An ancient forest had been 
growing and decaying around his feet, and 


A WONDER BOOK. 


161 


oak trees of six or seven centuries old had 
sprung from the acorns and forced themselves 
between his toes. 

The giant now looked down from the far 
height of his great eyes, and, perceiving Her- 
cules, roared out, in a voice that resembled 
thunder proceeding out of the cloud that had 
just flitted away from his face; 

“Who are you, down at my feet there? And 
whence do you come in that little cup?” 

“I am Hercules!” thundered back the hero 
in a voice pretty nearly or quite as loud as the 
giant’s own. “And I am seeking for the gar- 
den of the Hesperides!” 

“Ho! ho! ho!” roared the giant in a fit of 
immense laughter. “That is a wise adven- 
ture, truly!” 

“And why not?” cried Hercules, getting a 
little angry at the giant’s mirth. “Do you 
think I am afraid of the dragon with a hun- 
dred heads?” 

Just at this time, while they were talking 
together, some black clouds gathered about 
the giant’s middle and burst into a tremen- 
dous storm of thunder and lightning, causing 
such a pother that Hercules found it impos- 
sible to distinguish a word. Only the giant’s 
immeasurable legs were to be seen, standing 

11 Wonder Book 


162 


A WONDER BOOK. 


up into the obscurity of the tempest, and now 
and then a momentary glimpse of his whole 
figure mantled in a volume of mist. He 
seemed to be speaking most of the time, but 
his big, deep, rough voice chimed in with the 
reverberations of the thunderclaps and rolled 
away over the hills like them. Thus, by talk- 
ing out of season, the foolish giant expended 
an incalculable quantity of breath to no pur- 
pose, for the thunder spoke quite as intelligibly 
as he. 

At last the storm swept over as suddenly as 
it had come. And there again was the clear 
sky, and the weary giant holding it up, and 
the pleasant sunshine beaming over his vast 
height and illuminating it against the back- 
ground of the sullen thunderclouds. So far 
above the shower had been his head that not a 
hair of it was moistened by the rain-drops. 

When the giant could see Hercules still 
standing on the seashore he roared out to him 
anew: 

“I am Atlas, the mightiest giant in the 
world! And I hold the sky upon my head!” 

“So I see,” answered Hercules. “But can 
you show me the way to the garden of the 
Hesperides?” 

“What do you want there?” asked the giant. 


A WONDER BOOK. 


163 


“I want three of the golden apples,” 
shouted Hercules, “for my cousin the king. ” 

“There is nobody but myself, ” quoth the 
giant, “that can go to the garden of the Hes- 
perides and gather the golden apples. If it 
were not for this little business of holding up 
the sky, I would make half a dozen steps 
across the sea and get them for you. ’ ’ 

“You are very kind,” replied Hercules. 
“And cannot you rest the sky upon a moun- 
tain?” 

“None of them are quite high enough,” said 
Atlas, shaking his head. “But if you were to 
take your stand on the summit of that near- 
est one your head would be pretty nearly on a 
level with mine. You seem to be a fellow of 
some strength. What if you should take my 
burden on your shoulders while I do your 
errand for you?” 

Hercules, as you must be careful to remem- 
ber, was a remarkably strong man; and, 
though it certainly requires a great deal of 
muscular power to uphold the sky, yet, if any 
mortal could be supposed capable of such an 
exploit, he was the one. Nevertheless, it 
seemed so difficult an undertaking that for the 
first time in his life he hesitated. 

“Is the sky very heavy?” he inquired. 


164 


A WONDER BOOK. 


“Why, not particularly so at first,” answered 
the giant, shrugging his shoulders, “but it 
gets to be a little burdensome after a thousand 
years. ’ ’ 

“And how long a time,” asked the hero, 
“will it take you to get the golden apples?” 

“Oh, that will be done in a few moments,” 
cried Atlas. “I shall take ten or fifteen miles, 
at a stride, and be at the garden and back 
again before your shoulders begin to ache. ’ ’ 

“Well, then,” answered Hercules, “I will 
climb the mountain behind you there and re- 
lieve you of your burden. ’ ’ 

The truth is Hercules had a kind heart of his 
own, and considered that he should be doing 
the giant a favor by allowing him this oppor- 
tunity for a ramble. And, besides, he thought 
that it would be still more for his own glory if 
he could boast of upholding the sky than merely 
to do so ordinary a thing as to conquer a drag- 
on with a hundred heads. Accordingly, with- 
out more words, the sky was shifted from the 
shoulders of Atlas and placed upon those of 
Hercules. 

When this was safely accomplished, the first 
thing that the giant did was to stretch himself ; 
and you may imagine what a prodigious spec- 
tacle he was then. Next, he slowly lifted one 


A WONDER BOOK. 


165 


of his feet out of the forest that had grown up 
around it, then the other. Then all at once he 
began to caper and leap and dance for joy at 
his freedom, flinging himself nobody knows 
how high into the air, and floundering down 
again with a shock that made the earth trem- 
ble. Then he laughed — ho! ho! ho! — with a 
thunderous roar that was echoed from the 
mountains far and near, as if they and the giant 
had been so many rejoicing brothers. When 
his joy had a little subsided he stepped into 
the sea — ten miles at the first stride, which 
brought him mid leg deep; and ten miles at 
the second, when the water came just above 
his knees; and ten miles more at the third, 
by which he was immersed nearly to his waist. 
This was the greatest depth of the sea. 

Hercules watched the giant as he still went 
onward, for it was really a wonderful sight, 
this immense human form more than thirty 
miles off, half-hidden in the ocean, but with his 
upper half as tall and misty and blue as a dis- 
tant mountain. At last the gigantic shape 
faded entirely out of view. And now Hercu- 
les began to consider what he should do in case 
Atlas should be drowned in the sea, or if he 
were to be stung to death by the dragon with 
the hundred heads which guarded the golden 


166 


A WONDER BOOK. 


apples of the Hesperides. If any such misfor- 
tune were to happen, how could he ever get rid 
of the sky? And, by the by, its weight began 
already to be a little irksome to his head and 
shoulders. 

“I really pity the poor giant,” thought Her- 
cules. “If it wearies me so much in ten min- 
utes, how must it have wearied him in a thou- 
sand years ! 

Oh, my sweet little people, you have no idea 
what a weight there was in that same blue sky 
which looks so soft and aerial above our heads ! 
And there, too, was the bluster of the wind, 
and the chill and watery clouds, and the blaz- 
ing sun, all taking their turns to make Hercu- 
les uncomfortable. He began to be afraid that 
the giant would never come back. He gazed 
wistfully at the world beneath him, and 
acknowledged to himself that it was a far hap- 
pier kind of life to be a shepherd at the foot of 
a mountain than to stand on its dizzy summit 
and bear up the firmament with his might and 
main. For, of course, as you will easily un- 
derstand, Hercules had an immense responsi- 
bility on his mind, as well as a weight on his 
head and shoulders. Why, if he did not stand 
perfectly still and keep the sky immovable, 
the sun would perhaps be put ajar! Or, after 


A WONDER BOOK. 


167 


nightfall, a great many of the stars might be 
loosened from their places, and shower down 
like fiery rain upon the people’s heads! And 
how ashamed would the hero be if, owing to 
his unsteadiness beneath its weight, the sky 
should crack and show a great fissure quite 
across it ! 

I know not how long it was before, to his 
unspeakable joy, he beheld the huge shape of 
the giant, like a cloud, on the far-off edge of 
the sea. At his nearer approach Atlas held up 
his hand, in which Hercules could perceive 
three magnificent golden apples as big as 
pumpkins, all hanging from one branch. 

“I am glad to see you again,” shouted Her- 
cules when the giant was within hearing. “So 
you have got the golden apples?” 

“Certainly, certainly!” answered Atlas; 
“and very fair apples they are. I took the fin- 
est that grew on the tree, I assure you. Ah, it 
is a beautiful spot, that garden of the Hesper- 
ides! Yes, and the dragon with a hundred 
heads is a sight worth any man’s seeing. After 
all, you had better have gone for the apples 
yourself. ’ ’ 

“No matter,” replied Hercules. “You have 
had a pleasant ramble, and have done the busi- 
ness as well as I could. I heartily thank you 


168 


A WONDER BOOK. 


for your trouble. And now, as I have a long 
way to go and am rather in haste, and as the 
king my cousin is anxious to receive the golden 
apples, will you be kind enough to take the 
sky off my shoulders again?” 

“Why, as to that,” said the giant, chucking 
the golden apples into the air twenty miles 
high or thereabouts, and catching them as 
they came down — “as to that, my good friend, 
I consider you a little unreasonable. Cannot 
I carry the golden apples to the king your 
cousin much quicker than you could? As his 
majesty is in such a hurry to get them, I prom- 
ise you to take my longest strides. And, be- 
sides, I have no fancy for burdening myself 
with the sky just now. ” 

Here Hercules grew impatient, and gave a 
great shrug of his shoulders. It being now 
twilight, you might have seen two or three 
stars tumble out of their places. Everybody 
on earth looked upward in affright, thinking 
that the sky might be going to fall next, 

“Oh, that will never do!” cried Giant Atlas 
with a great roar of laughter. “I have not let 
fall so many stars within the last five centur- 
ies. By the time you have stood there as long 
as I did you will begin to learn patience. ’ ’ 
“What!” shouted Hercules very wrathfully, 


A WONDER BOOK. 


“do you intend to make me bear this burden 
forever?” 

“We will see about that one of these days,” 
answered the giant. “At all events, you ought 
not to complain if you have to bear it the next 
hundred years, or perhaps the next thousand. 
I bore it a good while longer, in spite of the 
backache. Well, then, after a thousand years, 
if I happen to feel in the mood, we may possi- 
bly shift about again. You are certainly a 
very strong man, and can never have a better 
opportunity to prove it. Posterity will talk of 
you, I warrant it. ” 

‘ ‘ Pish ! a fig for its talk ! ’ ' cried Hercules with 
another hitch of his shoulders. “Just take the 
sky upon your head one instant, will you? I 
want to make a cushion of my lion’s skin for 
the weight to rest upon. It really chafes me, 
and will cause unnecessary inconvenience in so 
many centuries as I am to stand here.” 

“That’s no more than fair, and I’ll do it,” 
quoth the giant ; for he had no unkind feeling 
toward Hercules, and was merely acting with 
a too selfish consideration of his own ease. 
“For just five minutes, then, I'll take back the 
sky. Only for five minutes, recollect. I have 
no idea of spending another thousand years 

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170 


A WONDER BOOK. 


as I spent the last. Variety is the spice of life, 
say I.” 

Ah, the thick-witted old rogue of a giant ! 
He threw down the golden apples, and re- 
ceived back the sky from the head and shoul- 
ders of Hercules upon his own, where it rightly 
belonged. And Hercules picked up the three 
golden apples that were as big or bigger than 
pumpkins, and straightway set out on his jour- 
ney homeward, without paying the slightest 
heed to the thundering tones of the giant, 
who bellowed after him to come back. An- 
other forest sprang up around his feet and grew 
ancient there, and again might be seen oak 
trees of six or seven centuries old, that had 
waxed thus aged betwixt his enormous toes. 

And there stands the giant to this day, or, at 
any rate, there stands a mountain as tall as he 
and which bears his name ; and when the thun- 
der rumbles about its summit we may imagine 
it to be the voice of Giant Atlas bellowing after 
Hercules. 


A WONDER BOOK. 


171 


TANGLEWOOD FIRESIDE. 

AFTER THE STORY. 

“Cousin Eustace,” demanded Sweet Fern, 
who had been sitting at the story-teller’s feet 
with his mouth wide open, “exactly how tall 
was this giant?” 

“Oh, Sweet Fern, Sweet Fern!” cried the 
student, “do you think I was there to measure 
him with a yard-stick? Well, if you must know 
to a hair’s breadth, I suppose he might be from 
three to fifteen miles straight upward, and that 
he might have seated himself on Taconic and 
had Monument Mountain for a footstool.” 

“Dear me!” ejaculated the good little boy 
with a contented sort of a grunt, “that was a 
giant, sure enough ! And how long was his 
little finger?” 

“As long as from Tanglewood to the lake,” 
said Eustace. 

“Sure enough that was a giant!” repeated 
Sweet Fern, in an ecstasy at the precision of 
these measurements. “And how broad, I won- 
der, were the shoulders of Hercules?” 


172 


A WONDER BOOK. 


“That is what I have never been able to find 
out,” answered the student. “But I think 
they must have been a great deal broader than 
mine, or than your father’s, or than almost 
any shoulders which one sees nowadays. ’ ’ 

“I wish,” whispered Sweet Fern with his 
mouth close to the student’s ear, “that you 
would tell me how big were some of the oak 
trees that grew between the giant’s toes.’’ 

“They were bigger, ’’ said Eustace, “than 
the great chestnut tree which stands beyond 
Captain Smith’s house.’’ 

“Eustace, ’’ remarked Mr. Pringle after some 
deliberation, “I find it impossible to express 
such an opinion of this story as will be likely 
to gratify in the smallest degree your pride of 
authorship. Pray, let me advise you never 
more to meddle with a classical myth. Your 
imagination is altogether Gothic, and will in- 
evitably Gothicise everything that you touch. 
The effect is like bedaubing a marble statue 
with paint. This giant, now! How can you 
have ventured to thrust his huge, dispropor- 
tioned mass among the seemly outlines of 
Grecian fable, the tendency of which is to re- 
duce even the extravagant within limits by its 
pervading elegance?” 

“I described the giant as he appeared to 


A WONDER BOOK. 


173 


me, * ’ replied the student, rather piqued. “And, 
sir, if you would only bring your mind into 
such a relation with these fables as is necessary 
in order to remodel them, you would see at 
once that an old Greek had no more exclusive 
right to them than a modern Yankee has. 
They are the common property of the world 
and of. all time. The ancient poets remodeled 
them at pleasure, and held them plastic in 
their hands ; and why should they not be plas- 
tic in my hands as well?” 

Mr. Pringle could not forbear a smile. 

“And, besides,” continued Eustace, “the 
moment you put any warmth of heart, any pas- 
sion or affection, any human or divine moral- 
ity, into a classic mold, you make it quite 
another thing from what it was before. My 
own opinion is that the Greeks, by taking pos- 
session of these legends (which were the 
immemorial birthright of mankind), putting 
them into shapes of indestructible beauty, 
indeed, but cold and heartless, have done all 
subsequent ages an incalculable injury.” 

“Which you, doubtless, were born to rem- 
edy,” said Mr. Pringle, laughing outright. 
“Well, well, go on; but take my advice, and 
never put any of your travesties on paper. 
And as your next effort, what if you should try 


174 


A WONDER BOOK. 


your hand on some one of the legends of 
Apollo?” 

“Ah, sir, you propose it as an impossibility,” 
observed the student after a moment’s medita- 
tion; “and, to be sure, at first thought the 
idea of a Gothic Apollo strikes one rather 
ludicrously. But I will turn over your sug- 
gestion in my mind, and do not quite despair 
of success. ’ ’ 

During the above discussion the children 
(who understood not a word of it) had grown 
very sleepy, and were now sent off to bed. 
Their drowsy babble was heard ascending the 
staircase, while a northwest wind roared loudly 
among the tree-tops of Tanglewood, and 
played an anthem around the house. Eustace 
Bright^ went back to the study and again 
endeavored to hammer out some verses, but 
fell asleep between two of the rhymes. 



A WONDER BOOK. 


175 


THE HILLSIDE. 

INTRODUCTORY TO “THE MIRACULOUS PITCHER.” 

And when and where do you think we find 
the children next? No longer in the winter 
time, but in the merry month of May. No 
longer in Tanglewood playroom or at Tangle- 
wood fireside, but more than halfway up a 
monstrous hill, or a mountain, as perhaps it 
would be better pleased to have us call it. 
They had set out from home with the mighty 
purpose of climbing this high hill even to the 
very tip-top of its bald head. To be sure, it 
was not quite so high as Chimborazo or Mount 
Blanc, and was even a good deal lower than 
old Graylock. But, at any rate, it was higher 
than a thousand ant-hillocks or a million of 
mole-hills, and when measured by the short 
strides of little • children might be reckoned a 
very respectable mountain. 

And was Cousin Eustace with the party? 
Of that you may be certain, else how could the 
book go on a step farther? He was now in the 
middle of the spring vacation, and looked 


176 


A WONDER BOOK. 


pretty much as we saw him four or five months 
ago, except that, if you gazed quite closely at 
his upper lip, you could discern the funniest 
little bit of a mustache upon it. Setting aside 
this mark of mature manhood, you might have 
considered Cousin Eustace just as much a boy 
as when you first became acquainted with him. 
He was as merry, as playful, as good-humored, 
as light of foot and of spirits, and equally a 
tavoiite with the little folks as he had always 
been. This expedition up the mountain was 
entirely of his contrivance. All the way up 
the steep ascent he had encouraged the elder 
children with his cheerful voice, and when 
Dandelion, Cowslip, and Squash-blossom grew 
weary he had lugged them along, alternately, 
on his back. In this manner they had passed 
through the orchards and pastures on the lower 
part of the hill, and had reached the wood 
which extends thence toward its bare summit. 

The month of May thus far had been more 
amiable than it often is, and this was as sweet 
and genial a day as the heart of man or child 
could wish. In their progress up the hill the 
small people had found enough of violets, blue 
and white, and some that were as golden as if 
they had the touch of Midas on them. That 
sociablest of flowers, the little Housatonia, was 


A WONDER BOOK. 


177 


very abundant. It is a flower that never lives 
alone, but which loves its own kind, and is 
always fond of dwelling with a great many 
friends and relatives around it. Sometimes 
you see a family of them covering a space no 
bigger than the palm of your hand, and some- 
times a large community whitening a whole 
tract of pasture and all keeping one another in 
cheerful heart and life. 

Within the verge of the wood there were 
columbines, looking more pale than red, be- 
cause they were so modest, and had thought 
proper to seclude themselves too anxiously 
from the sun. There were wild geraniums too, 
and a thousand white blossoms of the straw- 
berry. The trailing arbutus was not yet quite 
out of bloom, but it hid its precious flowers 
under the last year’s withered forest leaves as 
carefully as a mother-bird hides its little young 
ones. It knew, I suppose, how beautiful and 
sweet-scented they were. So cunning was 
their concealment that the children sometimes 
smelt the delicate richness of their perfume 
before they knew whence it proceeded. 

Amid so much new life it was strange and 
truly pitiful to behold here and there, in the 
fields and pastures, the hoary periwigs of dan- 
delions that had already gone to seed. They 
12 


178 


A WONDER BOOK. 


had done with summer before the summer 
came. Within those small globes of winged 
seeds it was autumn now. 

Well, but we must not waste our valuable 
pages with any more talk about the spring- 
time and wild flowers. There is something, 
we hope, more interesting to be talked about. 
If yo ft look at the group of children, you may 
see them all gathered around Eustace Bright, 
who, sitting on the stump of a tree, seems to 
be just beginning a story. The fact is, the 
younger part of the troop have found out that 
it takes rather too many of their short strides 
to measure the long ascent of the hill. Cousin 
Eustace, therefore, has decided to leave Sweet 
Fern, Cowslip, Squash-blossom, and Dande- 
lion at this point, midway up, until the return 
of the rest of the party from the summit. And 
because they complain a little and do not quite 
like to stay behind, he gives them some apples 
out of his pocket and proposes to tell them a 
very pretty story. Hereupon they brighten up 
and change their grieved looks into the broadest 
kind of smiles. 

As for the story, I was there to hear it, hid- 
den behind a bush, and shall tell it over to you 
in the pages that come next. 


A WONDER BOOK. 


179 


THE MIRACULOUS PITCHER. 

One evening in times long ago old Philemon 
and his old wife Baucis sat at their cottage door 
enjoying the calm and beautiful sunset. They 
had already eaten their frugal supper, and 
intended now to spend a quiet hour or two 
before bedtime. So they talked together 
about their garden and their cow and their 
bees and their grape-vine which clambered 
over the cottage- wall, and on which the grapes 
were beginning to turn purple. But the rude 
shouts of children and the fierce barking of 
dogs in the village near at hand grew louder 
and louder, until at last it was hardly possible 
for Baucis and Philemon to hear each other 
speak. 

“Ah, wife!” cried Philemon, “I fear some 
poor traveler is seeking hospitality among our 
neighbors yonder, and instead of giving him 
food and lodging they have set their dogs at 
him, as their custom is!” 

“Well-a-day !” answered old Baucis; “Ido 
wish our neighbors felt a little more kindness 


180 


A WONDER BOOK. 


for their fellow-creatures. And only think of 
bringing up their children in this naughty way, 
and patting them on the head when they fling 
stones at strangers!” 

‘‘Those children will never come to any 
good/’ said Philemon, shaking his white head. 
‘‘To tell you the truth, wife, I should not won- 
der if some terrible thing were to happen to 
all the people in the village unless they mend 
their manners. But as for you and me, so long 
as Providence affords us a crust of bread let us 
be ready to give half to any poor, homeless 
stranger that may come along and need it.” 

‘‘That’s right, husband!” said Baucis. ‘‘So 
we will.” 

These old folks, you must know, were quite 
poor, and had to work pretty hard for a living. 
Old Philemon toiled diligently in his garden, 
while Baucis was always busy with her distaff, 
or making a little butter and cheese with their 
cow’s milk, or doing one thing and another 
about the cottage. Their food was seldom any- 
thing but bread, milk, and vegetables, with 
sometimes a* portion of honey from their bee- 
hive, and now and then a bunch of grapes that 
had ripened against the cottage-wall. But 
they were two of the kindest old people in the 
world, and would cheerfully have gone with- 


A WONDER BOOK. 


181 


out their dinners any day rather than refuse a 
slice of their brown loaf, a cup of new milk, 
and a spoonful of honey to the weary traveler 
who might pause before their door. They felt 
as if such guests had a sort of holiness, and 
that they ought therefore to treat them better 
and more bountifully than their own selves. 

Their cottage stood on a rising ground at 
some distance from a village which lay in a 
hollow valley that was about half a mile in 
breadth. This valley in past ages, when the 
world was new, had probably been the bed of 
a lake. There fishes had glided to and fro in 
the depths, and water-weeds had grown along 
the margin, and trees and hills had seen their 
reflected images in the broad and peaceful 
mirror. But as the waters subsided men had 
cultivated the soil and built houses on it, so 
that it was now a fertile spot, and bore no 
traces of the ancient lake except a very small 
brook which meandered through the midst of 
the village and supplied the inhabitants with 
water. The valley had been dry land so long 
that oaks had sprung up and grown great and 
high, and perished with old age, and been suc- 
ceeded by others as tall and stately as the first. 
Never was there a prettier or more fruitful 
valley. The very sight of the plenty around 


182 


A WONDER BOOK. 


them should have made the inhabitants kind 
and gentle and ready to show their gratitude 
to Providence by doing good to their fellow- 
creatures. 

But we are sorry to say, the people of this 
lovely village were not worthy to dwell in a 
spot on which Heaven had smiled so benefi- 
cently. They were a very selfish and hard- 
hearted people, and had no pity for the poor 
nor sympathy with the homeless. They would 
only have laughed had anybody told them that 
human beings owe a debt of love to one an- 
other, because there is no other method of pay- 
ing the debt of love and care which all of us 
owe to Providence. You will hardly believe 
what I am going to tell you. These naughty 
people taught their children to be no better 
than themselves, and used to clap their hands 
by way of encouragement when they saw the 
little boys and girls run after some poor 
stranger, shouting at his heels and pelting him 
with stones. They kept large and fierce dogs, 
and whenever a traveler ventured to show him- 
self in the village street this pack of disagree- 
able curs scampered to meet him, barking, 
snarling, and showing their teeth. Then they 
would seize him by the leg or by the clothes, 
just as it happened, and, if he were ragged 


A WONDER BOOK. 


183 


when he came, he was generally a pitiable ob- 
ject before he had time to run away. This was 
a very terrible thing to poor travelers, as you 
may suppose especially when they chanced to 
be sick or feeble or lame or old. Such persons 
(if they once knew how badly these unkind 
people and their unkind children and curs were 
in the habit of behaving) would go miles and 
miles out of their way rather than try to pass 
through the village again. 

What made the matter seem worse, if possi- 
ble, was that when rich persons came in their 
chariots or riding on beautiful horses, with 
their servants in rich liveries attending on 
them, nobody could be more civil and obsequi- 
ous than the inhabitants of the village. They 
would take off their hats and make the hum- 
blest bows you ever saw. If the children were 
rude, they were pretty certain to get their ears 
boxed ; and as for the dogs, if a single cur in 
the pack presumed to yelp, his master instantly 
beat him with a club and tied him up without 
any supper. This would have been all very 
well, only it proved that the villagers cared 
much about the money that a stranger had in 
his pocket, and nothing whatever for the hu- 
man soul which lives equally in the beggar and 
the. prince. 


184 


A WONDER BOOK. 


So now you can understand why old Phile- 
mon spoke so sorrowfully when he heard the 
shouts of the children and the barking of the 
dogs at the farther extremity of the village 
street. There was a confused din, which lasted 
a good while and seemed to pass quite through 
the breadth of the valley. 

“I never heard the dogs so loud,” observed 
the good old man. 

“Nor the children so rude,” answered his 
good old wife. 

They sat shaking their heads one to another 
while the noise came nearer and nearer, until, 
at the foot of the little eminence on which their 
cottage stood, they saw two travelers approach- 
ing on foot. Close behind them came the fierce 
dogs snarling at their very heels. A little far- 
ther off ran a crowd of children, who sent up 
shrill cries and flung stones at the two strang- 
ers with all their might. Once or twice the 
younger of the two men (he was a slender and 
very active figure) turned about and drove 
back the dogs with a staff which he carried in 
his hand. His companion, who was a very tall 
person, walked calmly along, as if disdaining 
to notice either the naughty children or the 
pack of curs whose manners the children 
seemed to imitate. 


A WONDER BOOK. 


185 


Both of the travelers were very humbly clad, 
and looked as if they might not have money 
enough in their pockets to pay for a night’s 
lodging. And this, I am afraid, was the rea- 
son why the villagers had allowed their chil- 
dren and dogs to treat them so rudely. 

“Come, wife," said Philemon to Baucis, “let 
us go and meet these poor people. No doubt 
they feel almost too heavy-hearted to climb the 
hill. ” 

“Go you and meet them,” answered Baucis, 
“while I make haste within doors and see 
whether we can get them anything for supper. 
A comfortable bowl of bread and milk would 
do wonders toward raising their spirits.” 

Accordingly, she hastened into the cottage. 
Philemon, on his part, went forward and ex- 
tended his hand with so hospitable an aspect 
that there was no need of saying — what, nev- 
ertheless, he did say, in the heartiest tone im- 
aginable : 

“Welcpme, strangers! welcome !” 

“Thank you!” replied the younger of the 
two, in a lively kind of way, notwithstanding 
his weariness and trouble. “This is quite an- 
other greeting than we have met with yonder 
in the village. Pray, why do you live in such 
a bad neighborhood?” 


186 


A WONDER BOOK. 


“Ah!” observed old Philemon with a quiet 
an«d benign smile, ‘-‘Providence put me here, I 
hope, among other reasons, in order that I 
may make what amends I can for the inhospi- 
tality of my neighbors. ” 

“Well said, old father!” cried the traveler, 
laughing; “and, if the truth must be told, my 
companion and myself need some amends. 
Those children (the little rascals!) have be- 
spattered us finely with their mud balls, and 
one of the curs has torn my cloak, which was 
ragged enough already. But I took him across 
the muzzle with my staff, and I think you may 
have heard him yelp even thus far off. * ’ 

Philemon was glad to see him in such good 
spirit; nor, indeed, would you have fancied, 
by the traveler’s look and manner, that he was 
weary with a long day’s journey, besides being 
disheartened by rough treatment at the end of 
it. He was dressed in rather an odd way, with 
a sort of cap on his head, the brim of which 
stuck out over both ears. Though it was a 
summer evening, he wore a cloak, which he 
kept wrapt closely about him, perhaps because 
his under-garments were shabby. Philemon 
perceived, too, that he had on a singular pair 
of shoes, but as it was now growing dusk, and 
as the old man’s eyesight was none the sharp- 


A WONDER BOOK. 


187 


est, he could not precisely tell in what the 
strangeness consisted. One thing certainly 
seemed queer : the traveler was so wonderfully 
light and active that it appeared as if his feet 
sometimes rose from the ground of their own 
accord or could only be kept down by an effort. 

“I used to be light-footed in my youth, ” said 
Philemon to the traveler, “but I always found 
my feet grow heavier toward nightfall.” 

“There is nothing like a good staff to help 
one along,” answered the stranger; “and I 
happen to have an excellent one, as you see. * ’ 

The staff, in fact, was the oddest-looking 
staff that Philemon had ever beheld. It was 
made of olive-wood, and had something like a 
little pair of wings near the top. Two snakes, 
carved in the wood, were represented as twin- 
ing themselves about the staff, and were so 
very skilfully executed that old Philemon 
(whose eyes, you know, were getting rather 
dim) almost thought them alive, and that he 
could see them wriggling and twisting. 

“A curious piece of work, sure enough!” said 
he. “A staff with wings! It would be an ex- 
cellent kind of stick for a little boy to ride as- 
tride of.” 

By this time Philemon and his two guests 
had reached the cottage door. 


188 


A WONDER BOOK. 


“Friends," said the old man, “sit down and 
rest yourselves here on this bench. My good 
wife Baucis has gone to see what you can have 
for supper. We are poor folks, but you shall 
be welcome to whatever we have ih the cup- 
board. * ’ 

The younger stranger threw himself care- 
lessly on the bench, letting his staff fall as he 
did so. And here happened something rather 
marvelous, though trifling enough, too. The 
staff seemed to get up from the ground of its 
own accord, and, spreading its little pair of 
wings, it half-hopped, half-flew, and leaned 
itself against the wall of the cottage. There 
it stood quite still, except that the snakes 
continued to wriggle. But, in my private 
opinion, old Philemon’s eyesight had been 
playing him tricks again. 

Before he could ask any questions the elder 
stranger drew his attention from the wonder- 
ful staff by speaking to him. 

“Was there not," asked the stranger in a re- 
markably deep tone of voice, “a lake, in very 
ancient times, covering the spot where now 
stands yonder village?" 

“Not in my day, friend," answered Phile- 
mon, “and yet I am an old man, as you see. 
There were always the fields and meadows just 


A WONDER BOOK. 


189 


as they are now, and the old trees, and the lit- 
tle stream murmuring through the midst of the 
valley. My father nor his father before him, 
ever saw it otherwise, so far as I know, and 
doubtless it will still be the same when old 
Philemon shall be gone and forgotten.” 

“That is more than can be safely foretold,” 
observed the stranger; and there was some- 
thing very stern in his deep voice. He shook 
his head, too, so that his dark and heavy curls 
were shaken with the movement. “Since the 
inhabitants of yonder village have forgotten 
the affections and sympathies of their nature, 
it were better that the lake should be rippling 
over their dwellings again. ’ * 

The traveler looked so stern that Philemon 
was really almost frightened ; the more so, that 
at his frown the twilight seemed suddenly to 
grow darker, and that when he shook his head 
there was a roll as of thunder in the air. 

But in a moment afterward the stranger’s 
face became so kind and mild that the old 
man quite forgot his terror. Nevertheless, he 
could not help feeling that this elder traveler 
must be no ordinary personage, although he 
happened now to be attired so humbly and to 
be journeying on foot. Not that Philemon 
fancied him a prince in disguise or any char- 


190 


A WONDER BOOK. 


acter of that sort, but rather some exceedingly 
wise man who went about the world in this 
poor garb, despising wealth and all worldly 
objects, and seeking everywhere to add a mite 
to his wisdom. This idea appeared the more 
probable because, when Philemon raised his 
eyes to the stranger’s face, he seemed to see 
more thought there in one look than he could 
have studied out in a lifetime. 

While Baucis was getting the supper the 
travelers both began to talk very sociably with 
Philemon. The younger, indeed, was ex- 
tremely loquacious, and made such shrewd and 
witty remarks that the good old man contin- 
ually burst out a-laughing, and pronounced 
him the merriest fellow whom he had seen for 
many a day. 

“Pray, my young friend, ” said he as they 
grew familiar together, “what may I call your 
name?’’ 

“Why, I am very nimble, as you see,’’ an- 
swered the traveler. “So, if you call me 
Quicksilver, the name will fit tolerably well. ’ ’ 

“Quicksilver? Quicksilver?’’ repeated Phil- 
emon, looking in the traveler’s face to see if he 
were making fun of him. “It is a very odd 
name. And your companion there? Has he 
as strange a one? 


A WONDER BOOK. 


191 


“You must ask the thunder to tell you,” 
replied Quicksilver, putting on a mysterious 
look. “No other voice is loud enough.” 

This remark, whether it were serious or in 
jest, might have caused Philemon to conceive a 
very great awe of the elder stranger if, on ven- 
turing to gaze at him, he had not beheld so much 
beneficence in his visage. But, undoubtedly, 
here was the grandest figure that ever sat so 
humbly beside a cottage door. When the 
stranger conversed, it was with gravity, and 
in such a way that Philemon felt irresistibly 
moved to tell him everything which he had 
most at heart. This is always the feeling that 
people have when they meet with anyone wise 
enough to comprehend all their good and evil 
and to despise not a tittle of it. 

But Philemon, simple and kind-hearted old 
man that he was, had not any secrets to dis- 
close. He talked, however, quite garrulously 
about the events of his past life, in the whole 
course of which he had never been a score of 
miles from this very spot. His wife Baucis and 
himself had dwelt in the cottage from their 
youth upward, earning their bread by honest 
labor, always poor, but still contented. He 
told what excellent butter and cheese Baucis 
made, and how nice were the vegetables which 


192 


A WONDER BOOK. 


he raised in his garden. He said, too, that, 
because they loved one another so very much, 
it was the wish of both that death might not 
separate them, but that they should die, as 
they had lived, together. 

As the stranger listened a smile beamed 
over his countenance and made its expression 
as sweet as it was grand. 

“You are a good old man,’’ said he to Phil- 
emon, “and you have a good old wife to be 
your helpmeet. It is fit that your wish be 
granted. ’ ’ 

And it seemed to Philemon just then as if 
the sunset clouds threw up a bright flash from 
the west and kindled a sudden light in the 
sky. 

Baucis had now got supper ready, and, com- 
ing to the door, began to make apologies for 
the poor fare which she was forced to set 
before her guests. 

“Had we known you were coming,’’ said 
she, “my good man and myself would have 
gone without a morsel rather than you should 
lack a better supper. But I took the most part 
of to-day’s milk to make cheese, and our last 
loaf is already half-eaten. Ah, me ! I never 
feel the sorrow of being poor save when a poor 
traveler knocks at our door. ” 



“It was immediately filled to the brim.” — Pa^jc 106. 

Wonder Book. 




A WONDER BOOK. 


193 


“All will be very well; do not trouble your- 
self, my good dame,” replied the elder stran- 
ger kindly. 4 4 An honest, hearty welcome to a 
guest works miracles with the fare, and is 
capable of turning the coarsest food to nectar 
and ambrosia. 4 4 

“A welcome you shall have,” cried Baucis, 
“and likewise a little honey that we happen to 
have left, and a bunch of purple grapes 
besides. 4 ’ 

“Why, Mother Baucis, it is a feast!” ex- 
claimed Quicksilver, laughing, “an absolute 
feast! and you shall see how bravely I will 
play my part at it. I think I never felt hun- 
grier in my life. 4 4 

“Mercy on us!” whispered Baucis to her 
husband. “If the young man has such a ter- 
rible appetite, I am afraid there will not be 
half enough supper. 4 4 

They all went into the cottage. 

And now, my little auditors, shall I tell you 
something that will make you open your eyes 
very wide? It is really one of the oddest cir- 
cumstances in the whole story. Quicksilver’s 
staff, you recollect, had set itself up against 
the wall of the cottage. Well, when its mas- 
ter entered the door, leaving this wonderful 
staff behind, what should it do but imme- 

13 Wonder Book 


194 


A WONDER BOOK. 


diatejy spread its little wings and go hopping 
and fluttering up the doorsteps! Tap, tap, 
went the / staff on the kitchen floor, nor did it 
rest until it had stood itself on an end, with 
the greatest gravity and decorum, beside 
Quicksilver’s chair. Old Philemon, however, 
as well as his wife, was so taken up in attend- 
ing to their guests that no notice was given 
to what the staff had been about. 

As Baucis had said, there was but a scanty 
supper for two hungry travelers. In the mid- 
dle of the table was the remnant of a brown 
loaf, with a piece of cheese on one side of it 
and a dish of honeycomb on the other. There 
was a pretty good bunch of grapes for each of 
the guests. A moderately sized earthen 
pitcher, nearly full of milk, stood at a corner 
of the board, and when Baucis had filled two 
bowls and set them before the strangers only 
a little milk remained in the bottom of the 
pitcher. Alas ! it is a very sad business when a 
bountiful heart finds itself pinched and 
squeezed among narrow circumstances. Poor 
Baucis kept wishing that she might starve for 
a week to come, if it were possible by so doing 
to provide these hungry folks a more plentiful 
supper. 

And, since the supper was so exceedingly 


A WONDER BOOK. 


195 


small, she could not help wishing that their 
appetites had not been quite so large. Why, 
at their very first sitting down, the travelers 
both drank off all the milk in their two bowls 
at a draught ! 

“A little more milk, kind Mother Baucis, 
if you please,” said Quicksilver. ‘‘The day 
has been hot and I am very much athirst. ’ ’ 

‘‘Now, my dear people,” answered Baucis, in 
great confusion, ‘‘I am so sorry and ashamed! 
But the truth is, there is hardly a drop more 
milk in the pitcher. Oh, husband! husband! 
why didn’t we go without our supper?” 

‘‘Why, it appears to me,” cried Quicksilver, 
starting up from the table and taking the 
pitcher by the handle — ‘‘it really appears to 
me that matters are not quite so bad as you 
represent them. Here is certainly more milk 
in the pitcher.” 

So saying, and to the vast astonishment of 
Baucis, he proceeded to fill not only his own 
bowl, but his companion’s likewise, from the 
pitcher that was supposed to be almost empty. 
The good woman could scarcely believe her 
eyes. She had certainly poured out nearly 
all the milk, and had peeped in afterward and 
seen the bottom of the pitcher as she sat it 
down upon the table. 


196 


A WONDER BOOK. 


“But I am old,” thought Baucis to herself, 
“and apt to be forgetful. I suppose I must 
have made a mistake. At all events, the 
pitcher cannot help being empty now, after 
filling the bowls twice over. ’ ’ 

“What excellent milk!” observed Quick- 
silver, after quaffing the contents of the second 
bowl. “Excuse me, my kind hostess, but I 
must really ask you for a little more. ’ ’ 

Now, Baucis had seen, as plainly as she 
could see anything, that Quicksilver had turned 
the pitcher upside down, and consequently had 
poured out every drop of milk in filling the 
last bowl. Of course there could not possibly 
be any left. However, in order to let him 
know precisely how the case was, she lifted the 
pitcher and made a gesture as if pouring milk 
into Quicksilver’s bowl, but without the re- 
motest idea that any milk would stream forth. 
What was her surprise, therefore, when such 
an abundant cascade fell bubbling into the 
bowl that it was immediately filled to the brim 
and overflowed upon the table. The two 
snakes that were twisted about Quicksilver’s 
staff (but neither Baucis nor Philemon hap- 
pened to observe this circumstance) stretched 
out their heads and began to lap up the spilt 
milk. 


A WONDER BOOK. 


197 


And then what a delicious fragrance the milk 
had! It seemed as if Philemon’s only cow 
must have pastured that day on the richest 
herbage that could be found anywhere in the 
world. I only wish that each of you, my 
beloved little souls, could have a bowl of such 
nice milk at supper time ! 

“And now a slice of your brown loaf, Mother 
Baucis,” said Quicksilver, “and a little of that 
honey. ” 

Baucis cut him a slice accordingly; and 
though the loaf, when she and her husband 
ate of it, had been rather too dry and crusty to 
be palatable, it was now as light and moist as 
if but a few hours out of the oven. Tasting a 
crumb which had fallen on the table, she 
found it more delicious than bread ever was 
before, and could hardly believe that it was a 
loaf of her own kneading and baking. Yet 
what other loaf could it possibly be? 

But oh, the honey! I may just as well let it 
alone, without trying to describe how ex- 
quisitely it smelt and looked. Its color was 
that of the purest and most transparent gold, 
and it had the odor of a thousand flowers, but 
of such flowers as never grew in an earthly 
garden, and to seek which the bees must have 
flown high above the clouds. The wonder is 


198 


A WONDER BOOK. 


that, after alighting on a flower bed of so 
delicious fragrance and immortal bloom, they 
should have been content to fly down again to 
their hive in Philemon’s garden. Never was 
such honey tasted, seen, or smelt. The per- 
fume floated around the kitchen, and made it 
so delightful that, had you closed your eyes, 
you would instantly have forgotten the low 
ceiling and smoky walls, and have fancied 
yourself in an arbor with celestial honeysuckles 
creeping over it. 

Although good Mother Baucis was a simple 
old dame, she could not but think that there was 
something rather out of the common way in all 
that had been going on. So, after helping the 
guests to bread and honey and laying a bunch 
of grapes by each of their plates, she sat down 
by Philemon and told him what she had seen 
in a whisper. 

“Did you ever hear the like?’’ asked she. 

“No, I never did,’’ answered Philemon with 
a smile. “And I rather think, my dear old 
wife, you have been walking about in a sort 
of a dream. If I had poured out the milk, I 
should have seen through the business at once. 
There happened to be a little more in the 
pitcher than you thought — that is all.’’ 


A WONDER BOOK. 


199 


“Ah, husband!” said Baucis, “say what you 
will, these are very uncommon people. ” 

“Well, well!” replied Philemon, still smil- 
ing, “perhaps they are. They certainly do 
look as if they had seen better days, and I am 
heartily glad to see them making so comfort- 
able a supper. ’ ’ 

Each of the guests had now taken his bunch 
of grapes upon his plate. Baucis (who rubbed 
her eyes in order to see the more clearly) was 
of opinion that the clusters had grown larger 
and richer, and that each separate grape 
seemed to ^be on the point of bursting with 
ripe juice. It was entirely a rc^stery to her 
how such grapes could ever have been pro- 
duced from the old stunted vine that climbed 
against the cottage wall. 

“Very admirable grapes, these!” observed 
Quicksilver, as he swallowed one after an- 
other without apparently diminishing his clus- 
ter. “Pray, my good host, whence did you 
gather them?” 

‘ ‘ From my own vine, ’ ’ answered Philemon. 
“You may see one of its branches twisting 
across the window yonder. But wife and I 
never thought the grapes very fine ones.” 

“I never tasted better,” said the guest. 
“Another cup of this delicious milk, if you 


200 


A WONDER BOOK. 


please, and I shall then have supped better 
than a prince. ’ * 

This time old Philemon bestirred himself 
and took up the pitcher, for he was curious to 
discover whether there was any reality in the 
marvels which Baucis had whispered to him. 
He knew that his good old wife was incapable 
of falsehood, and that she was seldom mis- 
taken in what she supposed to be true; but 
this was so very singular a case that he 
wanted to see into it with his own eyes. On 
taking up the pitcher, therefore, he slyly 
peeped into it, and was fully satisfied that it 
contained not so much as a single drop. All 
at once, however, he beheld a little white 
fountain which gushed up from the bottom of 
the pitcher and speedily filled it to the brim 
with foaming and deliciously fragrant milk. 
It was lucky that Philemon, in his surprise, did 
not drop the miraculous pitcher from his hand. 

“Who are ye, wonder-working strangers?’’ 
cried he, even more bewildered than his wife 
had been. 

“Your guests, my good Philemon, and your 
friends,’’ replied the elder traveler, in his 
mild, deep voice that had something at once 
sweet and awe-inspiring in it. “Give me like- 
wise a cup of the milk ; and may your pitcher 


A WONDER BOOK. 


201 


never be empty for kind Baucis and yourself, 
any more than for the needy wayfarer/* 

The supper being now over, the strangers 
requested to be shown to their place of repose. 
The old people would gladly have talked with 
them a little longer, and have expressed the 
wonder which they felt, and their delight at 
finding the poor and meager supper prove so 
much better and more abundant than they 
hoped. But the elder traveler had inspired 
them with such reverence that they dared not 
ask him any questions. And when Philemon 
drew Quicksilver aside and inquired how under 
the sun a fountain of milk could have got into 
an old earthen pitcher, this latter personage 
pointed to his staff. 

“There is the whole mystery of the affair,” 
quoth Quicksilver, “and if you can make it out, 
I’ll thank you to let me know. I can’t tell 
what to make of my staff. It is always play- 
ing such odd tricks as this, sometimes getting 
me a supper, and quite as often stealing it 
away. If I had any faith in such nonsense, I 
should say the stick was bewitched.” 

He said no more, but looked so slyly in their 
faces that they rather fancied he was laughing 
at them. The magic staff went hopping at 
his heels as Quicksilver quitted the room. 

14 Wonder Book 


202 


A WONDER BOOK. 


When left alone the good old couple spent 
some little time in conversation about the 
events of the evening, and then lay down on 
the floor and fell fast asleep. They had given 
up their sleeping room to the guests, and had 
no other bed for themselves save these planks, 
which I wish had been as soft as their own 
hearts. 

The old man and his wife were stirring be- 
times in the morning, and the strangers like- 
wise arose with the sun and made their prepar- 
ations to depart. Philemon hospitably en- 
treated them to remain a little longer until 
Baucis could milk the cow and bake a cake 
upon the hearth, and perhaps find them a few 
fresh eggs for breakfast. The guests, however 
seemed to think it better to accomplish a good 
part of their journey before the heat of the day 
should come on. They, therefore, persisted in 
setting out immediately, but asked Philemon 
and Baucis to walk forth with them a short 
distance and show them the road which they 
were to take. 

So they all four issued from the cottage, 
chatting together like old friends. It was 
very remarkable, indeed, how familiar the old 
couple insensibly grew with the elder traveler, 
and how their good and simple spirits melted 


A WONDER BOOK. 


203 


into his, even as two drops of water would 
melt into the illimitable ocean. And as for 
Quicksilver, with his keen, quick, laughing 
wits, he appeared to discover every little 
thought that but peeped into their minds be- 
fore they suspected it themselves. They some- 
times wished, it is true, that he had not been 
quite so quick-witted, and also that he would 
fling away his staff, -which looked so mysteri- 
ously mischievous with the snakes always 
writhing about it. But, then, again, Quicksil- 
ver showed himself so very good-humored that 
they would have been rejoiced to keep him in 
their cottage, staff, snakes, and all, every day 
and the whole day long. 

“Ah, me! Well-a-day!" exclaimed Phile- 
mon when they had walked a little way from 
their door. “If our neighbors only knew 
what a blessed thing it is to show hospitality 
to strangers, they would tie up all their dogs 
and never allow their children to fling another 
stone." 

“It is a sin and shame for them to behave so- 
— that it is!" cried good old Baucis vehe- 
mently. “And I mean to go this very day and 
tell some of them what naughty people they 
are. * ’ 

“I fear," remarked Quicksilver, slyly smil- 


204 


A WONDER BOOK. 


ing, 4 "that you will find none of them at 
home. ’ ’ 

The elder traveler’s brow just then assumed 
such a grave, stern, and awful grandeur, yet 
serene withal, that neither Baucis nor Phile- 
mon dared to speak a word. They gazed rev- 
erently into his face, as if they had been gaz- 
ing at the sky. 

“When men do not feel toward the hum- 
blest stranger as if he were a brother,” said 
the traveler, in tones so deep that they sounded 
like those of an organ, “they are unworthy to 
exist on earth, which was created as the abode 
of a great human brotherhood. ’ ’ 

“And, by the bye, my dear old people,” 
cried Quicksilver, with the liveliest look of fun 
and mischief in his eyes, “where is this same 
village that you talk about? On which side of 
us does it lie? Methinks I do not see it here- 
abouts. ’ ’ 

Philemon and his wife turned toward the 
valley where at sunset only the day before 
they had seen the meadows, the houses, the 
gardens, the clumps of trees, the wide, green- 
margined street with children playing in it, and 
all the tokens of business, enjoyment, and pros- 
perity. But what was their astonishment! 
There was no longer any appearance of a 


A WONDER BOOK. 


205 


village ! Even the fertile vale in the hollow 
of which it lay had ceased to have existence. 
In its stead they beheld the broad blue surface 
of a lake which filled the great basin of the val- 
ley from brim to brim, and reflected the sur- 
rounding hills in its bosom with as tranquil an 
image as if it had been there ever since the 
creation of the world. For an instant the 
lake remained perfectly smooth. Then a little 
breeze sprung up and caused the water to 
dance, glitter, and sparkle in the early sun- 
beams and to dash with a pleasant rippling 
murmur against the hither shore. 

The lake seemed so strangely familiar that 
the old couple were greatly perplexed, and felt 
as if they could only have been dreaming 
about a village having lain there. But the 
next moment they remembered the vanished 
dwellings and the faces and characters of the 
inhabitants far too distinctly for a dream. 
The village had been there yesterday, and 
now was gone ! 

“Alas!” cried these kind-hearted old people, 
“what has become of our poor neighbors?” 

“They exist no longer as men and women,” 
said the elder traveler in his grand and deep 
voice, while a roll of thunder seemed to echo 
it at a distance. “There was neither use nor 


206 


A WONDER BOOK. 


beauty in such a life as theirs, for they never 
softened or sweetened the hard lot of mortality 
by the exercise of kindly affections between 
man and man. They retained no image of 
the better life in their bosoms, therefore the 
lake that was of old has spread itself forth 
again to reflect the sky.” 

‘‘And as for those foolish people,” said 
Quicksilver with his mischievous smile, “they 
are all transformed to fishes. They needed 
but little change, for they were already a 
scaly set of rascals and the coldest-blooded 
beings in existence. So, kind Mother Baucis, 
whenever you or your husband have an ap- 
petite for a dish of broiled trout, he can thrown 
in a line and pull out half a dozen of your old 
neighbors. ’ ’ 

“Ah,” cried Baucis, shuddering, “I would 
not for the world put one of them on the grid- 
iron!” 

“No,” added Philemon, making a wry face, 
“we could never relish them.” 

“As for you, good Philemon,” continued 
the elder traveler — “and you, kind Baucis — 
you with your scanty means have mingled so 
much heartfelt hospitality with your enter- 
tainment of the homeless stranger that the milk 
became an inexhaustible fount of nectar, and 


A WONDER BOOK. 


207 


the brown loaf and the honey were ambrosia. 
Thus the divinities have feasted at your board 
off the same viands that supply their banquets 
on Olympus. You have done well, my dear 
old friends. Wherefore request whatever 
favor you have most at heart, and it is 
granted. ” 

Philemon and Baucis looked at one another, 
and then — I know not which of the two it was 
who spoke, but that one uttered the desire of 
both their hearts : 

“Let us live together while we live, and 
leave the world at the same instant when we 
die. For we have always loved one another. ’ ’ 

“Be it so,” replied the stranger with majes- 
tic kindness. ‘ ‘ Now look toward your cottage. ’ ’ 

They did so; but what was their surprise on 
beholding a tall edifice of white marble with 
a wide-open portal occupying the spot where 
their humble residence had so lately stood. 

“There is your home,” said the stranger, 
beneficently smiling on them both. “Exer- 
cise your hospitality in yonder palace as freely 
as in the poor hovel to which you welcomed 
us last evening. ” 

The old folks fell on their knees to thank 
him, but, behold! neither he nor Quicksilver 
was there. 


A WONDER BOOK. 


So Philemon and Baucis took up their resi- 
dence in the marble palace, and spent their 
time, with vast satisfaction to themselves, in 
making everybody jolly and comfortable who 
happened to pass that way. The milk-pitcher, 
I must not forget to say, retained its mar- 
velous quality of being never empty when it 
was desirable to have it full. Whenever an 
honest, good-huniored, and free-hearted guest 
took a draught from this pitcher, he invariably 
found it the sweetest and most invigorating 
fluid that ever ran down his throat. But if a 
cross and disagreeable curmudgeon happened 
to sip, he was pretty certain to twist his visage 
into a hard knot and pronounce it a pitcher of 
sour milk. 

Thus the old couple lived in their palace a 
great, great while, and grew older and older, 
and very old indeed. At length, however, 
there came a summer morning when Philemon 
and Baucis failed to make their appearance, as 
on other mornings, with one hospitable smile 
overspreading both their pleasant faces, to in- 
vite the guests of overnight to breakfast. The 
guests searched ever} r where, from top to bot- 
tom of the spacious palace, and all to no pur- 
pose. But, after a great deal of perplexity, 
they espied in front of the portal two vener- 


A WONDER BOOK. 


able trees which nobody could remember to 
have seen there the day before. Yet there 
they stood, with their roots fastened deep into 
the soil and a huge breadth of foliage over- 
shadowing the whole front of the edifice. One 
was an oak and the other a linden tree. Their 
boughs — it was strange and beautiful to see — 
were intertwined together and embraced one 
another, so that each tree seemed to live in 
the other tree’s bosom much more than in its 
own. 

While the guests were marveling how these 
trees, that must have required at least a cen- 
tury to grow, could have come to be so tall 
and venerable in a single night, a breeze 
sprang up and set their intermingled boughs 
astir. And then there was a deep, broad 
murmur in the air, as if the two mysterious 
trees were speaking. 

“I am old Philemon!” murmured the oak. 

‘‘I am old Baucis!” murmured the linden 
tree. 

But as the breeze grew stronger the trees 
both spoke at once — “Philemon! Baucis! 
Baucis ! Philemon ! ’ ’ — as if one were both and 
both were one, and talking together in the 
depths of their mutual heart. It was plain 
enough to perceive that the good old couple 

14 


210 


A WONDER BOOK. 


had renewed their age, and were now to spend 
a quiet and delightful hundred years or so, 
Philemon as an oak and Baucis as a linden 
tree. And oh, what a hospitable shade did 
they fling around them ! Whenever a wayfarer 
paused beneath it he heard a pleasant whisper 
of the leaves above his head, and wondered 
how the sound should so much resemble words 
like these: 

“Welcome, welcome, dear traveler; wel- 
come!” 

And some kind soul that knew what would 
have pleased old Baucis and old Philemon best 
built a circular seat around both their trunks, 
where, for a great while afterward, the weary 
and the hungry and the thirsty used to repose 
themselves and quaff milk abundantly out of 
the miraculous pitcher. 

And I wish, for all our sakes, that we had 
the pitcher here now ! 


A WONDER BOOK. 


211 


THE HILLSIDE. 

AFTER THE STORY. 

“How much did the pitcher hold?” asked 
Sweet Fern. 

“It did not hold quite a quart, ” answered 
the student, “but you might keep pouring milk 
out of it till you should fill a hogshead if you 
pleased. The truth is, it would run on for- 
ever, and not be dry even at midsummer; 
which is more than can be said of yonder rill 
that goes babbling down the hillside.” 

“And what has become of the pitcher now?” 
inquired the little boy. 

“It was broken, I am sorry to say, about 
twenty- five thousand years ago,” replied 
Cousin Eustace. “The people mended it as 
well as they could, but, though it would hold 
milk pretty well, it was never afterward known 
to fill itself of its own accord. So, you see, it 
was no better than any other cracked earthen 
pitcher.” 

“What a pity!” cried all the children a.t 


once. 


212 


A WONDER BOOK. 


The respectable dog Ben had accompanied 
the party, as did likewise a half-grown New- 
foundland puppy who went by the name of 
Bruin, because he was just as black as a bear. 
Ben, being elderly and of very circumspect 
habits, was respectfully requested by Cousin 
Eustace to stay behind with the four little chil- 
dren, in order to keep them out of mischief. 
As for black Bruin, who was himself nothing 
but a child, the student thought it best to take 
him along, lest in his rude play with thfe other 
children he should trip them up and send them 
rolling and tumbling down the hill. Advis- 
ing Cowslip, Sweet Fern, Dandelion, and 
Squash-blossom to sit pretty sjill in the spot 
where he left them, the student, with Prim- 
rose and the elder children, began to ascend, 
and was soon out of sight among the trees. 


A WONDER BOOK. 


213 


BALD SUMMIT. 

INTRODUCTORY TO “THE CHIMERA . 99 

Upward along the steep and wooded hillside 
went Eustace Bright and his companions. 
The trees were not yet in full leaf, but had 
budded forth sufficiently to throw an airy 
shadow, while the sunshine filled them with 
green light. There were moss-grown rocks 
half hidden among the old brown fallen 
leaves; thereSwere rotten tree-trunks lying at 
full length where they had long ago fallen ; 
there were decayed boughs that had been 
shaken down by the wintry gales and were 
scattered everywhere about. But still, though 
these things looked so aged, the aspect of the 
wood was that of the newest life, for, which- 
ever way you turned your eyes, something 
fresh and green was springing forth, so as to 
be ready for the summer. 

At last the young people reached the upper 
verge of the wood, and found themselves 
almost at the summit of the hill. It was not 
a peak nor a great round ball, but a pretty wide 


214 


A WONDER BOOK. 


plain or table-land with a house and bam 
upon it at some distance. That house was the 
home of a solitary family, and oftentimes the 
clouds, whence fell the rain and whence the 
snowstorm drifted down into the valley, hung* 
lower than this bleak and lonely dwelling- 
place. 

On the highest point of the hill was a heap 
of stones, in the center of which was stuck a 
long pole with a little flag fluttering at the end 
of it. Eustace led the children thither, and 
bade them look around and see how large a 
tract of our beautiful world they could take in 
at a glance. And their eyes grew wider as they 
looked. 

Monument Mountain, to the southward, was 
still in the center of the scene, but seemed to 
have sunk and subsided, so that it was now but 
an undistinguished member of a large family 
of hills. Beyond it the Taconic range looked 
higher and bulkier than before. Our pretty 
lake was seen, with all its little bays and inlets; 
and not that alone, but two or three new lakes 
were opening their blue eyes to the sun. Sev- 
eral white villages, each with its steeple, were 
scattered about in the distance. There were 
so many farmhouses, with their acres of wood- 
land, pasture, mowing-fields, and tillage, that 


A WONDER BOOK. 


215 


the children could hardly make room in their 
minds to receive all these different objects. 
There, too, was Tanglewood, which they had 
hitherto thought such an important apex of the 
world. It now occupied so small a space that 
they gazed far beyond it and on either side, 
and searched a good while with all their eyes 
before discovering whereabout it stood. 

White fleecy clouds were hanging in the air, 
and threw the dark spots of their shadow here 
and there over the landscape. But by and by 
the sunshine was where the shadow had been, 
and the shadow was somewhere else. 

Far to the westward was a range of blue 
mountains which Eustace Bright told the chil- 
dren were the Catskills. Among those misty 
hills, he said, was a spot where some old Dutch- 
men were playing an everlasting game of nine- 
pins, and where an idle fellow whose name was 
Rip Van Winkle had fallen asleep and slept 
twenty years at a stretch. The children 
eagerly besought Eustace to tell them all about 
this wonderful affair. But the student replied 
that the story had been told once already, and 
better than it ever could be told again, and 
that nobody would have a right to alter a 
word of it until it should have grown as old as 
“The Gorgon’s Head’’ and “The Three Golden 


216 


A WONDER BOOK. 


Apples” and the rest of those miraculous 
legends. 

“At least,” said Periwinkle, “while we rest 
ourselves here and are looking about us, you 
can tell us another of your own stories. ’ ’ 

“Yes, Cousin Eustace,” cried Primrose, “I 
advise you to tell us a story here. Take some 
lofty subject or other, and see if your imagina- 
tion will not come up to it. Perhaps the 
mountain air may make you poetical for once/* 
And no matter how strange and wonderful the 
story may be, now that we are up among the 
clouds, we can believe anything. ’ ’ 

“Can you believe,” asked Eustace, “that 
there was once a winged horse?” 

“Yes,” said saucy Primrose, “but I am 
afraid you will never be able to catch him. ’ ’ 
“For that matter, Primrose,” rejoined the 
student, “I might possibly catch Pegasus, and 
get upon his back too, as well as a dozen other 
fellows that I know of. At any rate, here is a 
story about him ; and, of all places in the world, 
it ought certainly to be told upon a mountain- 
top. ’ ’ 

So, sitting on the pile of stones while the 
children clustered themselves at its base, Eus- 
tace fixed his eyes on a white cloud that was 
sailing by and began as follows: 


A WONDER BOOK. 


217 


THE CHIMERA. 

Once, in the old, old times (for all the strange 
things which I tell you about happened long be- 
fore anybody can remember), a fountain gushed 
out of a hillside in the marvelous land of Greece. 
And, for aught I know, after so many thou- 
sand years it is still gushing out of the very self- 
same spot. At any rate, there was the pleas- 
ant fountain welling freshly forth and spark- 
ling adown the hillside in the golden sunset 
when a handsome young man named Beller- 
ophon drew near its margin. In his hand he 
held a bridle studded with brilliant gems and 
adorned with a golden bit. Seeing an old man 
and another of middle age and a little boy 
near the fountain, and likewise a maiden who 
was dipping up some of the water in a pitcher, 
he paused and begged that he might refresh 
himself with a draught. 

“This is very delicious water/’ he said to 
the maiden as he rinsed and filled her pitcher 
after drinking out of it. “Will you be kind 


218 


A WONDER BOOK. 


enough to tell me whether the fountain has any 
name?” 

‘‘Yes, it is called the Fountain of Pirene,” 
answered the maiden; and then she added, 
“my grandmother has told me that this clear 
fountain was once a beautiful woman, and 
when her son was killed by the arrows of the 
huntress Diana she melted all away into tears. 
And so the water which you find so cool 
and sweet is the sorrow of that poor mother’s 
heart ! ’ ’ 

“I should not have dreamed,” observed the 
young stranger, “that so clear a well-spring, 
with its gush and gurgle and its cherry dance 
out of the shade into the sunlight, had so much 
as one teardrop in its bosom. And this, then, 
is Pirene? I thank you, pretty maiden, for 
telling me its name. I have come from a far- 
away country to find this very spot. ’ ’ 

A middle-aged country fellow (he had driven 
his cow to drink out of the spring) stared hard 
at young Bellerophon and at the handsome 
bridle which he carried in his hand. 

“The water-courses must be getting low, 
friend, in your part of the world, ’ ’ remarked 
he, “if you come so far only to find the foun- 
tain of Pirene. But, pray, have you lost a 
horse? I see you carry the bridle in your 


A WONDER BOOK. 219 

hand ; and a very pretty one it is, with that 
double row of bright stones upon it. If the 
horse was as fine as the bridle, you are much 
to be pitied for losing him.” 

“I have lost no horse,” said Bellerophon 
with a smile, “but I happen to be seeking a 
very famous one, which, as wise people have 
informed me, must be found hereabouts if any- 
where. Do you know whether the winged 
horse Pegasus still haunts the Fountain of 
Pirene, as he used to do in your forefathers’ 
days?” 

But then the country fellow laughed. 

Some of you, my little friends, have probably 
heard that this Pegasus was a snow-white steed 
with beautiful silvery wings, who spent most 
of his time on the summit of Mount Helicon. 
He was as wild and as swift and as buoyant in 
his flight through the air as any eagle that ever 
soared into the clouds. There was nothing else 
like him in the world. He had no mate, he 
had never been backed or bridled by a master, 
and for many a long year he led a solitary and 
a happy life. 

Oh, how fine a thing it is to be a winged 
horse ! Sleeping at night, as he did, on a lofty 
mountain-top, and passing the greater part of 
the day in the air, Pegasus seemed hardly to 


220 


A WONDER BOOK. 


be a creature of the earth. Whenever he was 
seen up very high above people’s heads, with 
the sunshine on his silvery wings, you would 
have thought that he belonged to the sky, and 
that, skimming a little too low, he had got 
astray among our mists and vapors and was 
seeking his way back again. It was very 
pretty to behold him plunge into the fleecy 
bosom of a bright cloud and be. lost in for a 
moment or two, and then break forth from the 
other side. Or in a sullen rainstorm, when 
there was a gray pavement of clouds over the 
whole sky, it would sometimes happen that the 
winged horse descended right through it, and 
the glad light of the upper region would gleam 
after him. In another instant, it is true, both 
Pegasus and the pleasant light would be gone 
away together. But anyone that was fortun- 
ate enough to see this wondrous spectacle felt 
cheerful the whole day afterward, and as much 
longer as the storm lasted. 

In the summer time and in the beautifulest 
of weather Pegasus often alighted on the solid 
earth, and, closing his silvery wings, would 
gallop over hill and dale for pastime as fleetly 
as the wind. Oftener than in any other place 
he had been seen near the Fountain of Pirene, 
drinking the delicious water or rolling himself 


A WONDER BOOK. 


221 


upon the soft grass of the margin. Sometimes, 
too (but Pegasus was very dainty in his food), 
he would crop a few of the clover blossoms that 
happened to be sweetest. 

To the Fountain of Pirene, therefore, peo- 
ple’s great-grandfathers had been in the habit 
of going (as long as they were youthful and 
retained their faith in winged horses) in hopes 
of getting a glimpse at the beautiful Pegasus. 
But of late years he had been very seldom seen. 
Indeed, there were many of the country folks 
dwelling within half an hour’s walk of the 
fountain who had never beheld Pegasus, and 
did not believe that there was any such creature 
in existence. The country fellow to whom 
Bellerophon was speaking chanced to be one 
of those incredulous persons. 

And that was the reason why he laughed. 

“Pegasus, indeed!” cried he, turning up his 
nose as high as such a flat nose could be turned 
up. “Pegasus, indeed! A winged horse, 
truly ! Why, friend, are you in your senses? 
Of what use would wings be to a horse? Could 
he drag the plow so well, think you? To be 
sure, there might be a little saving in the 
expense of shoes, but then how would a man 
like to see his horse flying out of the stable- 
window? — yes, or whisking him up above the 


222 


A WONDER BOOK. 


clouds when he only wanted to ride to mill? 
No, no! I don’t believe in Pegasus. There 
never was such a ridiculous kind of a horse- 
fowl made ! ’ ’ 

“I have some reason to think otherwise,” 
said Bellerophon quietly. 

And then he turned to an old gray man who 
was leaning on a staff and listening very attent- 
ively with his head stretched forward and one 
hand at his ear, because for the last twenty 
years he had been getting rather deaf. 

“And what say you, venerable sir?” inquired 
he. “In your younger days, I should imagine, 
you must frequently have seen the winged 
steed.” 

‘‘Ah, young stranger! my memory is very 
poor,” said the aged man. ‘‘When I was a 
lad, if I remember rightly, I used to believe 
there was such a horse, and so did everybody 
else. But nowadays I hardly know what to 
think, and very seldom think about the winged 
horse at all. If I ever saw the creature, it was 
a long, long while ago ; and, to tell you the 
truth, I doubt whether I ever did see him. 
One day, to be sure, when I was quite a youth, 
I remember seeing some hoof-tramps round 
about the brink of the fountain. Pegasus 


A WONDER BOOK. 


223 


might have made those hoof-marks, and so 
might some other horse. ’ ’ 

“And have you never seen him, my fair 
maiden?” asked Bellerophon of the' girl, who 
stood with the pitcher on her head while this 
talk went on. “You certainly could see 
Pegasus if anybody can, for your eyes are very 
bright.” 

“Once I thought I saw him,” replied the 
maiden with a smile and a blush. “It was 
either Pegasus or a large white bird a very 
great way up in the air. And one other time, 
as I was coming to the fountain with my 
pitcher, I heard a neigh. Oh, such a brisk and 
melodious neigh as that was ! My very heart 
leaped with delight at the sound. But it 
startled me, nevertheless, so that I ran home 
without filling my pitcher.” 

“That was truly a pity!” said Bellerophon. 

And he turned to the child whom I men- 
tioned at the beginning of the story, and who 
was gazing at him, as children are apt to gaze 
at strangers, with his rosy mouth wide open. 

“Well, my little fellow,” cried Bellerophon, 
playfully pulling one of his curls, 4 4 1 suppose 
you have often seen the winged horse.” 

“That I have, ” answered the child very read- 


224 


A WONDER BOOK. 


ily. “I saw him yesterday and many times 
before.” 

“Yon are a fine little man!” said Bellerophon, 
drawing the child closer to him. “Come, tell 
me all about it. ” 

“Why,” replied the child, “I often come 
here to sail little boats in the fountain and to 
gather pretty pebbles out of its basin. And 
sometimes, when I look down into the water, 
I see the image of the winged horse in the pic- 
ture of the sky that is there. I wish he would 
come down and take me on his back and let 
me ride up to the moon. But if I so much as 
stir to look at him he flies far away, out of 
sight.” 

And Bellerophon put his faith in the child 
who had seen the image of Pegasus in the 
water, and in the maiden who had heard him 
neigh so melodiously, rather than in the 
middle-aged clown who believed only in cart- 
horses, or in the old man who had forgotten 
the beautiful things of his youth. 

Therefore he haunted about the Fountain of 
Pirene for a great many days afterward. He 
kept continually on the watch, looking upward 
at the sky or else down into the water, hoping 
forever that he should see either the reflected 
image of the winged horse or the marvelous 


A WONDER BOOK. 


225 


reality. He held the bridle with its bright 
gems and golden bit always ready in his hand. 
The rustic people who dwelt in the neighbor- 
hood and drove their cattle to the fountain to 
drink would often laugh at poor Bellerophon, 
and sometimes take him pretty severely to task. 
They told him that an able-bodied young man 
like himself ought to have better business than 
to be wasting his time in such an idle pursuit. 
They offered to sell him a horse if he wanted 
one, and when Bellerophon declined the pur- 
chase they tried to drive a bargain with him 
for his fine bridle. 

Even the country boys thought him so very 
foolish that they used to have a great deal of 
sport about him, and were rude enough not to 
care a fig although Bellerophon saw and heard 
it. One little urchin, for example, would play 
Pegasus, and cut the oddest imaginable capers 
by way of flying, while one of his schoolfellows 
would scamper after him holding forth a twist 
of bulrushes which was intended to represent 
Bellerophon’s ornamental bridle. But the 
gentle child who had seen the picture of 
Pegasus in the water comforted the young 
stranger more than all the naughty boys could 
torment him. The dear little fellow in his play- 
hours often sat down beside him, and, without 

15 Wonder Book 


226 


A WONDER BOOK. 


speaking a word, would look down into the 
fountain and up toward the sky with so inno- 
cent a faith that Bellerophon could not help 
feeling encouraged. 

Now, you will perhaps wish to be told why 
it was that Bellerophon had undertaken to 
catch the winged horse, and we shall find no 
better opportunity to speak about this matter 
than while he is waiting for Pegasus to appear. 

If I were to relate the whole of Bellerophon ’s 
previous adventures, they might easily grow 
into a very long story. It will be quite enough 
to say that in a certain country of Asia a ter- 
rible monster called a Chimaera had made its 
appearance, and was doing more mischief than 
could be talked about between now and sunset. 
According to the best accounts which I have 
been able to obtain, this Chimaera was nearly, 
if not quite the ugliest and most poisonous 
creature, and the strangest and unaccount- 
ablest, and the hardest to fight with and the 
most difficult to run away from, that ever came 
out of the earth’s inside. It had a tail like a 
boa constrictor, its body was like I do not care 
what, and it had three separate heads, one of 
which was a lion’s, the second a goat’s, and the 
third an abominably great snake’s, and a hot 
blast of fire came flaming out of each of its 


A WONDER BOOK. 


227 


three mouths. Being an earthly monster, I 
doubt whether it had any wings ; but, wings, 
or no, it ran like a goat and a lion and wriggled 
along like a serpent, and thus contrived to make 
about as much speed as all the three together. 

Oh, the mischief and mischief and mischief 
that this naughty creature did! With its flam- 
ing breath it could set a forest on fire or burn 
up a field of grain, or, for that matter, a vil- 
lage with all its fences and houses. It laid 
waste the whole country round about, and used 
to eat up people and animals alive, and cook 
them afterward in the burning oven of its 
stomach. Mercy on us, little children ! I hope 
neither you nor I will ever happen to meet a 
Chimsera. 

While the hateful beast (if a beast we can 
anywise call it) was doing all these horrible 
things, it so chanced that Bellerophon came to 
that part of the world on a visit to the king. 
The king’s name was Iobates, and Lycia was 
the country which he ruled over. Bellerophon 
was one of the bravest youths in the world, and 
desired nothing so much as to do some valiant 
and beneficent deed, such as would make all 
mankind admire and love him. In those days 
the only way for a young man to distinguish 
himself was by fighting battles, either with the 


228 


A WONDER BOOK. 


enemies of his country or with wicked giants 
or with troublesome dragons or with wild 
beasts, when he could find nothing more dan- 
gerous to encounter. King Iobates, perceiv- 
ing the courage of his youthful visitor, pro- 
posed to him to go and fight the Chimsera, 
which everybody else was afraid of, and which, 
unless it should be soon killed, was likely to 
convert Lycia into a desert. Bellerophon 
hesitated not a moment, but assured the king 
that he would either slay this dreaded Chimaera 
or perish in the attempt. 

But, in the first place, as the monster was so 
prodigiously swift, he bethought himself that 
he should never win the victory by fighting on 
foot. The wisest thing he could do, therefore, 
was to get the very best and fleetest horse that 
could anywhere be found. And what other 
horse in all the world was half so fleet as the 
marvelous horse Pegasus, who had wings as well 
as legs, and was even more active in the air than 
on the earth? To be sure, a great many people 
denied that there was any such horse with 
wings, and said that the stories about him were 
all poetry and nonsense. But, wonderful as it 
appeared, Bellerophon believed that Pegasus 
was a real steed, and hoped that he himself 
might be fortunate enough to find him ; and, 


A WONDER BOOK. 


223 


once fairly mounted on his back, he would be 
able to fight the Chimaera at better advantage. 

And this was the purpose with which he had 
traveled from Lycia to Greece and had brought 
the beautifully ornamented bridle in his hand. 
It was an enchanted bridle. If he could only 
succeed in putting the golden bit into the 
mouth of Pegasus, the winged horse would be 
submissive, and would own Bellerophon for his 
master, and fly whithersoever he might choose 
to turn the rein. 

But, indeed, it was a weary and anxious time 
while Bellerophon waited and waited for 
Pegasus, in hopes that he would come and 
drink at the Fountain of Pirene. He was 
afraid lest King Iobates should imagine that 
he had fled from the Chimaera. It pained 
him, too, to think how much mischief the 
monster was doing while he himself, instead of 
fighting with it, was compelled to sit idly poring 
over the bright waters of Pirene as they gushed 
out of the sparkling sand. And as Pegasus 
came thither so seldom in these latter years* 
and scarcely alighted there more than 
once in a lifetime, Bellerophon feared that he 
might grow an old man, and have no strength 
left in his arms nor courage in his heart, before 
the winged horse would appear. Oh, how 


230 


A WONDER BOOK. 


heavily passes the time while an adventurous 
youth is yearning to do his part in life and to 
gather in the harvest of his renown! How 
hard a lesson it is to wait! Our life is brief, 
and how much of it is spent in teaching us 
only this! 

Well was it for Bellerophon that the gentle 
child had grown so fond of him and was never 
weary of keeping him company. Every morn- 
ing the child gave him a new hope to put in 
his bosom instead of yesterday’s withered one. 

“Dear Bellerophon,” he would cry, looking 
up hopefully into his face, “I think we shall 
see Pegasus to-day.” 

And at length, if it had not been for the little 
boy’s unwavering faith, Bellerophon would 
have given up all hope, and would have gone 
back to Lycia and have done his best to slay the 
Chimaera without the help of the winged horse. 
And in that case poor Bellerophon would at 
least have been terribly scorched by the crea- 
ture’s breath, and would most probably have 
been killed and devoured. Nobody should 
ever try to fight an earth-born Chimaera unless 
he can first get upon the back of an aerial steed. 

One morning the child spoke to Bellerophon 
even more hopefully than usual. 

“Dear, dear Bellerophon,” cried he, “I know 


A WONDER BOOK. 


231 


not why it is, but I feel as if we should cer- 
tainly see Pegasus to-day. ’ ’ 

And all that day he would not stir a step from 
Bellerophon’s side, so they ate a crust of bread 
together and drank some of the water of the 
fountain. In the afternoon there they sat, and 
Bellerophon had thrown his arm around the 
child, who likewise had put one of his little 
hands into Bellerophon’s. The latter was lost 
in his own thoughts, and was fixing his eyes 
vacantly on the trunks of the trees that over- 
shadowed the fountain and on the grapevines 
that clambered up among their branches. But 
the gentle child was gazing down into the 
water; he was grieved, for Bellerophon’s sake, 
that the hope of another day should be deceived 
like so many before it, and two or three quiet 
tear-drops fell from his eyes and mingled with 
what were said to be the many tears of Pirene 
when she wept for her slain children. 

But, when he least thought of it, Bellerophon 
felt the pressure of the child’s little hand and 
heard a soft, almost breathless whisper: 

“See there, dear Bellerophon! There is an 
image in the water!’’ 

The young man looked down into the dimp- 
ling mirror of the fountain, and saw what he 
took to be the reflection of a bird which seemed 


232 


A WONDER BOOK. 


to be flying at a great height in the air, with a 
gleam of sunshine on its snowy or silvery 
wings. 

“What a splendid bird it must be!” said he. 
“And how very large it looks, though it must 
really be flying higher than the clouds ! ’ ’ 

“It makes me tremble,” whispered the child. 
“I am afraid to look up into the air. It is very 
beautiful, and yet I dare only look at its image 
in the water. Dear Bellerophon, do you not 
see that it is no bird? It is the winged horse 
Pegasus. ’ ’ 

Bellerophon ’s heart began to throb. He 
gazed keenly upward, but could not see the 
winged creature, whether bird or horse, because 
just then it had plunged into the fleecy depths 
of a summer cloud. It was but a moment, 
however, before the object reappeared, sinking 
lightly down out of the cloud, although still at 
a vast distance from the earth. Bellerophon 
caught the child in his arms and shrank back 
with him, so that they were both hidden among 
the thick shrubbery which grew all around the 
fountain. Not that he was afraid of any harm, 
but he dreaded lest, if Pegasus caught a 
glimpse of them, he would fly far away and 
alight in some inaccessible mountain-top. For 
it was really the winged horse. After they 


A WONDER BOOK. 


233 


had expected him so long, he was coming to 
quench his thirst with the water of Pirene. 

Nearer and nearer came the aerial wonder, 
flying in great circles, as you may have seen 
a dove when about to alight. Downward 
came Pegasus, in those wide, sweeping circles 
which grew narrower and narrower still as he 
gradually approached the earth. The nigher 
the view of him, the more beautiful he was 
and the more marvelous the sweep of his sil- 
very wings. At last, with so slight a pressure 
as hardly to bend the grass above the fountain 
or imprint a hoof-tramp in the sand of its mar- 
gin, he alighted, and, stooping his wild head, 
began to drink. He drew in the water with 
long and pleasant sighs and tranquil pauses of 
enjoyment, and then another draught, and 
another, and another. For nowhere in the 
world or up among the clouds did Pegasus 
love any water as he loved this of Pirene. 
And when his thirst was slaked he cropt a few 
of the honey-blossoms of the clover, delicately 
tasting them, but not caring to make a hearty 
meal, because the herbage just beneath the 
clouds on the lofty sides of Mount Helicon 
suited his palate better than this ordinary 
grass. 

After thus drinking to his heart’s content, 

16 Wonder Book 


234 


A WONDER BOOK. 


and in his dainty fashion condescending to take 
a little food, the winged horse began to caper 
to and fro and dance, as it were, out of mere 
idleness and sport. There never was a more 
playful creature made than this very Pegasus. 
So there he frisked in a way that it delights 
me to think about ; fluttering his great wings 
as lightly as ever did a linnet, and running 
little races half on earth and half in air, and 
which I know not whether to call a flight or a 
gallop. When a creature is perfectly able to 
fly, he sometimes chooses to run just for the 
pastime of the thing; and so did Pegasus, 
although it cost him some little trouble to keep 
his hoofs so near the ground. Bellerophon, 
meanwhile, holding the child’s hand, peeped 
forth from the shrubbery, and thought that 
never was any sight so beautiful as this, nor 
ever a horse’s eyes so wild and spirited as 
those of Pegasus. It seemed a sin to think of 
bridling him and riding on his back. 

Once or twice Pegasus stopped and snuffed 
the air, pricking up his ears, tossing his head, 
and turning it on all sides, as if he partly sus- 
pected some mischief or other. Seeing noth- 
ing, however, and hearing no sound, he soon 
began his antics again. 

At length — not that he was weary, but only 


A WONDER BOOK. 


235 


idle and luxurious — Pegasus folded his wings 
and lay down on the soft green turf. But, 
being too full of aerial life to remain quiet for 
many moments together, he soon rolled over 
on his back with his four slender legs in the 
air. It was beautiful to see him, this one soli- 
tary creature whose mate had never been 
created, but who needed no companion, and, 
living a great many hundred years, was as 
happy as the centuries were long. The more 
he did such things as mortal horses are accus- 
tomed to do, the less earthly and the more 
wonderful he seemed. Bellerophon and the 
child almost held their breath, partly from a 
delightful awe, but still more because they 
dreaded lest the slightest stir or murmur 
should send him up with the speed of an 
arrow-flight into the farthest blue of the sky. 

Finally, when he had had enough of rolling 
over and over, Pegasus turned himself about 
and, indolently, like any other horse, put out 
his fore legs in order to rise from the ground; 
and Bellerophon, who had guessed that he 
would do so, darted suddenly from the thicket 
and leaped astride of his back. 

Yes, there he sat, on the back of the winged., 
horse ! 

But what a bound did Pegasus make when* 


A WONDER BOOK. 


for the first time, he felt the weight of a mor- 
tal man upon his loins! A bound, indeed! 
Before he had time to draw a breath Bellero- 
phon found himself five hundred feet aloft, 
and still shooting upward, while the winged 
horse snorted and trembled with terror and 
anger. Upward he went, up, up, up, until he 
plunged into the cold, misty bosom of a cloud 
at which, only a little while before, Bellero- 
phon had been gazing and fancying it a very 
pleasant spot. Then again, out of the heart 
of the cloud, Pegasus shot down like a thunder- 
bolt, as if he meant to dash both himself and his 
xider headlong against a rock. Then he went 
through about a thousand of the wildest capri- 
oles that had ever been performed either by a 
bird or a horse. 

I -cannot tell you half that he did. He 
skimmed straight forward and sideways and 
backward. He reared himself erect, with his 
fore legs on a wreath of mist and his hind legs 
on nothing at all. He flung out his heels be- 
hind and put down his head between his legs 
with his wings pointing right upward. At 
about two miles’ height above the earth he 
turned a somerset, so that Bellerophon’s heels 
were where his head should have been, and 
he seemed to look down into the sky instead 


A WONDER BOOK. 


231 


of up. He twisted his head about, and, look- 
ing Bellerophon in the face with fire flashing 
from his eyes, made a terrible attempt to bite 
him. He fluttered his pinions so wildly that 
one of the silver feathers was shaken out, and r 
floating earthward, was picked up by the 
child, who kept it as long as he lived in mem- 
ory of Pegasus and Bellerophon. 

But the latter (who, as you may judge, was 
as good a horseman as ever galloped) had been 
watching his opportunity, and at last clapped 
the golden bit of the enchanted bridle between 
the winged steed’s jaws. No sooner was this 
done than Pegasus became as manageable as 
if he had taken food all his life out of Bellero- 
phon ’s hand. To speak what I really feel, it 
was almost a sadness to see so wild a creature 
grow suddenly so tame. And Pegasus seemed 
to feel it so likewise. He looked round to Bel- 
lerophon with tears in his beautiful eyes, in- 
stead of the fire that so recently flashed from 
them. But when Bellerophon patted hio head 
and spoke a few authoritative, yet kind and 
soothing words, another look came into the 
eyes of Pegasus, for he was glad at heart, after 
so many lonely centuries, to have found a com- 
panion and a master. 

Thus it always is with winged horses and 


238 


A WONDER BOOK. 


with all such wild and solitary creatures. If 
you can catch and overcome them, it is the 
surest way to win their love. 

While Pegasus had been doing his utmost to 
shake Bellerophon off his back he had flown a 
very long distance, and they had come within 
sight of a lofty mountain by the time the bit 
was in his mouth. Bellerophon had seen this 
mountain before, and knew it to be Helicon, 
on the summit of which was the winged horse’s 
abode. Thither (after looking gently into his 
rider’s face, as if to ask leave) Pegasus now 
flew, and, alighting, waited patiently until 
Bellerophon should please to dismount. The 
young man accordingly leaped from his steed’s 
back, but still held him fast by the bridle. 
Meeting his eyes, however, he was so affected 
by the gentleness of his aspect and by his 
beauty, and by the thought of the free life 
which Pegasus had heretofore lived, that he 
could not bear to keep him a prisoner if he 
really desired his liberty. 

Obeying this generous impulse, he slipped 
the enchanted bridle off the head of Pegasus 
and took the bit from his mouth. 

“Leave me, Pegasus!” said he. “Either 
leave me or love me. ’ ’ 

In an instant the winged horse shot almost 


A WONDER BOOK. 


239 


out of sight, soaring straight upward from the 
summit of Mount Helicon. Being long after 
sunset, it was now twilight on the mountain- 
top and dusky evening over all the country 
round about. But Pegasus flew so high that 
he overtook the departed day and was bathed 
in the upper radiance of the sun. Ascending 
higher and higher, he looked like a bright 
speck, and at last could no longer be seen in 
the hollow waste of the sky. And Bellerophon 
was afraid that he should never behold him 
more. But while he was lamenting his own 
folly the bright speck reappeared, and drew 
nearer and nearer until it descended lower 
than the sunshine, and behold Pegasus had 
come back ! After this trial there was no more 
fear of the winged horse’s making his escape. 
He and Bellerophon were friends, and put lov- 
ing faith in one another. 

That night they lay down and slept together, 
with Bellerophon ’s arm about the neck of 
Pegasus, not as a caution, but for kindness. 
And they awoke at peep of day, and bade 
one another good-morning, each in his own 
language. 

In this manner Bellerophon and the won- 
drous steed spent several days, and grew bet- 
ter acquainted and fonder of each other all the 


240 


A WONDER BOOK. 


time. They went on long aerial journeys, 
and sometimes ascended so high that the earth 
looked hardly bigger than the moon. They 
visited different countries, and amazed the 
inhabitants, who thought that the beautiful 
young man on the back of the winged horse 
must have come down out of the sky. A 
thousand miles a day was no more than an 
easy space for the fleet Pegasus to pass over. 
Bellerophon was delighted with this kind of 
life, and would have liked nothing better than 
to live always in the same way, aloft in the 
clear atmosphere, for it was always sunny 
weather up there, however cheerless and rainy 
it might be in the lower region. But he could 
not forget the horrible Chimsera which he had 
promised King Iobates to slay. So at last, 
when he had become well accustomed to feats 
of horsemanship in the air, and could manage 
Pegasus with the least motion of his hand, and 
had taught him to obey his voice, he deter- 
mined to attempt the performance of this per- 
ilous adventure. 

At daybreak, therefore, as soon as he un- 
closed his eyes, he gently pinched the winged 
horse’s ear in order to arouse him. Pegasus 
immediately started from the ground, and 
pranced about a quarter of a mile aloft and 


A WONDER BOOK. 


241 


made a grand sweep around the mountain-top 
by way of showing that he was wide awake 
and ready for any kind of an excursion. Dur- 
ing the whole of this little flight he uttered a 
loud, brisk, and melodious neigh, and finally 
came down at Bellerophon’s side as lightly as 
ever you saw a sparrow hop upon a twig. 

“Well done, dear Pegasus! well done, my 
sky-skimmer !’ ’cried Bellerophon, fondly strok- 
ing the horse’s neck. “And now, my fleet and 
beautiful friend, we must break our fast. To- 
day we are to fight the terrible Chimaera. ’ ’ 

As soon as they had eaten their morning 
meal, and drank some sparkling water from a 
spring called Hippocrene, Pegasus held out his 
head of his own accord so that his master 
might put on the bridle. Then, with a great 
many playful leaps and airy caperings, he 
showed his impatience to be gone, while Bel- 
lerophon was girding on his sword and hang- 
ing his shield about his neck and preparing 
himself for battle. When everything was 
ready the rider mounted and (as was his cus- 
tom when going a long distance) ascended 
five miles perpendicularly, so as the better to 
see whither he was directing his course. He 
then turned the head of Pegasus toward the 
east and set out for Lycia. In their flight 
16 


242 


A WONDER BOOK. 


they overtook an eagle, and came so nigh him, 
before he could get out of their way, that Bel- 
lerophon might easily have caught him by the 
leg. Hastening onward at this rate, it was 
still early in the forenoon when they beheld 
the lofty mountains of Lycia with their deep 
and shaggy valleys. If Bellerophon had been 
told truly, it was in one of those dismal val- 
leys that the hideous Chimsera had taken up 
its abode. 

Being now so near their journey’s end, the 
winged horse gradually descended with his 
rider, and they took advantage of some clouds 
that were floating over the mountain-tops in 
order to conceal themselves. Hovering on 
the upper surface of a cloud and peeping over 
its edge, Bellerophon had a pretty distinct 
view of the mountainous part of Lycia, and 
could look into all its shadowy vales at once. 
At first there appeared to be nothing remark- 
able. It was a wild, savage, and rocky tract 
of high and precipitous hills. In the more 
level part of the country there were the ruins 
of houses that had been burnt, and here and 
there the carcasses of dead cattle strewn about 
the pastures where they had been feeding. 

“The Chimaera must have done this mis- 


A WONDER BOOK. 


243 


chief,” thought Bellerophon. ‘‘But where 
can the monster be?” 

As I have already said, there was nothing 
remarkable to be detected at first sight in any 
of the valleys and dells that lay among the 
precipitous heights of the mountains — nothing 
at all, unless, indeed, it were three spires of 
black smoke which issued from what seemed 
to be the mouth of a cavern and clambered 
sullenly into the atmosphere. Before reach- 
ing the mountain-top these three black smoke- 
wreaths mingled themselves into one. The 
cavern was almost directly beneath the winged 
horse and his rider, at the distance of about a 
thousand feet. The smoke, as it crept heav- 
ily upward, had an ugly, sulphurous, stifling 
scent which caused Pegasus to snort and Bel- 
lerophon to sneeze. So disagreeable was it to 
the marvelous steed (who was accustomed to 
breathe only the purest air) that he waved his 
wings and shot half a mile out of the range of 
this offensive vapor. 

But on looking behind him, Bellerophon saw 
something that induced him first to draw the 
bridle and then to turn Pegasus about. He 
made a sign, which the winged horse under- 
stood, and sunk slowly through the air until 
his hoofs were scarcely more than a man’s 


244 


A WONDER BOOK. 


height above the rocky bottom of the valley. 
In front, as far off as you could throw a stone, 
was the cavern’s mouth with the three smoke- 
wreaths oozing out of it. And what else did 
Bellerophon behold there? 

There seemed to be a heap of strange and 
terrible creatures curled up within the cavern. 
Their bodies lay so close together that Bellero- 
phon could not distinguish them apart; but, 
judging by their heads, one of these creatures 
was a huge snake, the second a fierce lion, 
and the third an ugly goat. The lion and the 
goat were asleep; the snake was broad 
awake, and kept staring around him with a 
great pair of fiery eyes. But — and this was 
the most wonderful part of the matter — the 
three spires of smoke evidently issued from 
the nostrils of these three heads ! So strange 
was the spectacle that, though Bellerophon 
had been all along expecting it, the truth did 
not immediately occur to him that here was 
the terrible three-headed Chimaera. He had 
found out the Chimsera’s cavern. The snake, 
the lion, and the goat, as he supposed them 
to be, were not three separate creatures, but 
one monster ! 

The wicked, hateful thing ! Slumbering as 
two-thirds of it were, it still held in its abom- 


A WONDER BOOK. 


245 


inable claws the remnant of an unfortunate 
lamb — or possibly (but I hate to think so) it 
was a dear little boy — which its three mouths 
had been gnawing before two of them fell 
asleep ! 

All at once Bellerophon started as from a 
dream, and knew it to be the Chimaera. Pega- 
sus seemed to know it at the same instant, and 
sent forth a neigh that sounded like the call of 
a trumpet to battle. At this sound the three 
heads reared themselves erect and belched 
out great flashes of flame. Before Bellero- 
phon had time to consider what to do next 
the monster flung itself out of the cavern 
apd sprung straight toward him with its im- 
mense claws extended and its snaky tail 
twisting itself venomously behind. If Pega- 
sus had not been as nimble as a bird, both he 
and his rider would have been overthrown by 
the Chimaera’s headlong rush, and thus the 
battle have been ended before it was well be- 
gun. But the winged horse was not to be 
caught so. In the twinkling of an eye he was 
up aloft, half way to the clouds, snorting with 
anger. He shuddered, too, not with affright, 
but with utter disgust at the loathsomeness of 
this poisonous thing with three heads. 

The Chimaera, on the other hand, raised it- 


246 


A WONDER BOOK. 


self up so as to stand absolutely on the tip end 
of its tail, with its talons pawing fiercely in 
the air and its three heads spluttering fire at 
Pegasus and his rider. My stars! how it 
roared and hissed and bellowed ! Bellerophon, 
meanwhile, was fitting his shield on his arm 
and drawing his sword. 

“Now, my beloved Pegasus,” he whispered 
in the winged horse’s ear, “thou must help me 
to slay this insufferable monster, or else thou 
shalt fly back to thy solitary mountain-peak 
without thy friend Bellerophon. For either 
the Chimaera dies or its three mouths shall 
gnaw this head of mine which has slumbered 
upon thy neck. ’ ’ 

Pegasus whinnied and, turning back his 
head, rubbed his nose tenderly against his 
rider’s cheek. It was his way of telling him 
that, though he had wings and was an immor- 
tal horse, yet he would perish, if it were pos- 
sible for immortality to perish, rather than 
leave Bellerophon behind. 

“I thank you, Pegasus,” answered Bellero- 
phon. “Now, then, let us make a dash at the 
monster!” 

Uttering these words, he shook the bridle, 
and Pegasus darted down aslant, as swift as 
the flight of an arrow, right toward the Chi- 


A WONDER BOOK. 


247 


maera’s threefold head, which all this time was 
poking itself as high as it could into the air. 
As he came within arm’s length Bellerophon 
made a cut at the monster, but was carried on- 
ward by his steed before he could see whether 
the blow had been successful. Pegasus con- 
tinued his course, but soon wheeled round at 
about the same distance from the Chimaera as 
before. Bellerophon then perceived that he 
had cut the goat’s head of the monster almost 
off, so that it dangled downward by the skin 
and seemed quite dead. 

But, to make amends, the snake’s head and 
the lion’s head had taken all the fierceness of 
the dead one into themselves, and spit flame 
and hissed and roared with a vast deal more 
fury than before. 

“Never mind, my brave Pegasus!” cried 
Bellerophon. “With another stroke like that 
we will stop either its hissing or its roaring. ’ ’ 

And again he shook the bridle. Dashing 
aslantwise as before, the winged horse made 
another arrow-flight toward the Chimaera, and 
Bellerophon aimed another downright stroke 
at one of the two remaining heads as he shot 
by. But this time neither he nor Pegasus 
escaped so well as at first. With one of its 
claws the Chimaera had given the young man 


248 


A WONDER BOOK. 


a deep scratch in his shoulder, and had slightly 
damaged the left wing of the flying steed with 
the other. On his part, Bellerophon had mor- 
tally wounded the lion’s head of the monster, 
insomuch that it now hung downward, with 
its fire almost extinguished and sending out 
gasps of thick black smoke. The snake’s head, 
however (which was the only one now left), 
was twice as fierce and venomous as ever 
before. It belched forth shoots of fire five 
hundred yards long, and emitted hisses so 
loud, so harsh, and so ear-piercing that King 
Iobates heard them fifty miles off, and trem- 
bled till the throne shook under him. 

“Well-a-day !” thought the poor king; “the 
Chimsera is certainly coming to devour me.” 

Meanwhile, Pegasus had again paused in the 
air and neighed angrily, while sparkles of a 
pure crystal flame darted out of his eyes. 
How unlike the lurid fire of the Chimsera! 
The aerial steed’s spirit was all aroused, and 
so was that of Bellerophon. 

“Dost thou bleed, my immortal horse?” cried 
the young man, caring less for his own hurt 
than for the anguish of this glorious creature 
that ought never to have tasted pain. “The 
execrable Chimsera shall pay for this mischief 
with his last head. ” 


A WONDER BOOK. 


249 


Then he shook the bridle, shouted loudly, 
and guided Pegasus, not aslantwise as before, 
but straight at the monster’s hideous front. 
So rapid was the onset that it seemed but a 
dazzle and a flash before Bellerophon was at 
close gripes with his enemy ! 

The Chimaera by this time, after losing its 
second head, had got into a red-hot passion of 
pain and rampant rage. It so flounced about, 
half on earth and partly in the air, that it was 
impossible to say which element it rested upon. 
It opened its snake-jaws to such an abominable 
width that Pegasus might almost, I was going 
to say, have flown right down its throat, wings 
oustpread, rider and all ! At their approach it 
shot out a tremendous blast of its fiery breath 
and enveloped Bellerophon and his steed in a 
perfect atmosphere of flame, singeing the wings 
of Pegasus, scorching off one whole side of the 
young man’s golden ringlets, and making them 
both far hotter than was comfortable from 
head to foot. 

But this was nothing to what followed. 

When the airy rush of the winged horse had 
brought him within the distance of a hundred 
yards the Chimaera gave a spring, and flung 
its huge, awkward, venomous, and utterly 
detestable carcass right upon poor Pegasus, 


250 


A WONDER BOOK. 


clung round him with might and main, and 
tied up its snaky tail into a knot! Up flew the 
aerial steed, higher, higher, above the moun- 
tain-peaks, above the clouds, and almost out of 
sight of the solid earth. But still the earth- 
born monster kept its hold, and was borne up- 
ward along with the creature of light and air. 
Bellerophon, meanwhile, turning about, found 
himself face to face with the ugly grimness of 
the Chimsera’s visage, and could only avoid 
being scorched to death or bitten right in twain 
by holding up his shield. Over the upper edge 
of the shield he looked sternly into the savage 
eyes of the monster. 

But the Chimaera was so mad and wild with 
pain that it did not guard itself so well as 
might else have been the case. Perhaps, after 
all, the best way to fight a Chimaera is by get- 
ting as close to it as you can. In its efforts to 
stick its horrible iron claws into its enemy the 
creature left its own breast quite exposed, 
and, perceiving this, Bellerophon thrust his 
sword up to the hilt into its cruel heart. Im- 
mediately the snaky tail untied its knot. The 
monster let go its hold of Pegasus, and fell 
from that vast height downward, while the fire 
within its bosom, instead of being put out, 
burned fiercer than ever, and quickly began to 


A WONDER BOOK. 


251 


consume the dead carcass. Thus it fell out of 
the sky all aflame, and (it being nightfall 
before it reached the earth) was mistaken for a 
shooting star or a comet. But at early sunrise 
some cottagers were going to their day’s labor, 
and saw, to their astonishment, that several 
acres of ground were strewn with black ashes. 
In the middle of a field there was a heap of 
whitened bones, a great deal higher than a 
haystack. Nothing else was ever seen of the 
dreadful Chimaera! 

And when Bellerophon had won the victory 
he bent forward and kissed Pegasus, while the 
tears stood in his eyes. 

“Back now, my beloved steed!” said he. 
“Back to the Fountain of Pirene!” 

Pegasus skimmed through the air quicker than 
ever he did before, and reached the fountain in 
a very short time. And there he found the old 
man leaning on his staff, and the country fellow 
watering his cow, and the pretty maiden filling 
her pitcher. 

“I remember now,” quoth the old man, “I 
saw this winged horse once before, when I was 
quite a lad. But he was ten times handsomer 
in those days. ’ ’ 

“I own a cart-horse worth three of him,” 
said the country fellow. “If this pony were 


252 


A WONDER BOOK. 


mine, the first thing I should do would be to 
clip his wings. ” 

But the poor maiden said nothing, for she 
had always the luck to be afraid at the wrong 
time. So she ran away and let her pitcher 
tumble down and broke it. 

“Where is the gentle child,” asked Bellero- 
phon, “who used to keep me company, and 
never lost his faith, and never was weary of 
gazing into the fountain?” 

“Here am I, dear Bellerophon!” said the 
child softly. 

For the little boy had spent day after day on 
the margin of Pirene, waiting for his friend to 
come back, but when he perceived Bellerophon 
descending through the clouds mounted on the 
winged horse, he had shrunk back into the 
shrubbery. He was a delicate and tender 
child, and dreaded lest the old man and the 
country fellow should see the tears gushing 
from his eyes. 

“Thou hast won the victory, ” said he joy- 
fully, running to the knee of Bellerophon, who 
still sat on the back of Pegasus. * 4 1 knew thou 
would st. ’ ’ 

“Yes, dear child!” replied Bellerophon, 
alighting from the winged horse. “But if thy 
faith had not helped me, I should never have 


A WONDER BOOK. 


253 


waited for Pegasus, and never have gone up 
above the clouds, and never have conquered 
the terrible Chimaera. Thou, my beloved little 
friend, hast done it all. And now let us give 
Pegasus his liberty. ’ ’ 

So he slipt off the enchanted bridle from the 
head of the marvelous steed. 

“Be free for evermore, my Pegasus!” cried 
he, with a shade of sadness in his tone. “Be 
as free as thou art fleet. ’ ’ 

But Pegasus rested his head on Bellerophon ’s 
shoulder, and would not be persuaded to take 
flight. 

“Well, then,” said Bellerophon, caressing 
the airy horse, “thou shalt be with me as long 
as thou wilt, and we will go together forthwith 
and tell King Iobates that the Chimaera is 
destroyed. ” 

Then Bellerophon embraced the gentle child 
and promised to come again, and departed. 
But in after years that child took higher flights 
upon the aerial steed than ever did Bellero- 
phon, and achieved more honorable deeds than 
his friend’s victory over the Chimaera. For, 
gentle and tender as he was, he grew to be a 
mighty poet. 


254 


A WONDER BOOK. 


BALD SUMMIT. 

AFTER THE STORY. 

Eustace Bright told the legend of Bellero- 
phon with as much fervor and animation as if 
he had really been taking a gallop on the 
winged horse. At the conclusion he was grat- 
ified to discern by the glowing countenances of 
his auditors how greatly they had been inter- 
ested. All their eyes were dancing in their 
heads except those of Primrose. In her eyes 
there were positively tears, for she was con- 
scious of something in the legend which the rest 
of them were not yet old enough to feel. 
Child’s story as it was, the student had con- 
trived to breathe through it the ardor, the gen- 
erous hope, and the imaginative enterprise of 
youth. 

“I forgive you now. Primrose,” said he, “for 
all your ridicule of myself and my stories. 
One tear pays for a great deal of laughter. ’ ’ 

“Well, Mr. Bright,” answered Primrose, 
wiping her eyes and giving him another of her 
mischievous smiles, “it certainly does elevate 


A WONDER BOOK. 


255 


your ideas to get your head above the clouds. 
I advise you never to tell another story unless 
it be, as at present, from the top of a moun- 
tain. ’ ' 

“Or from the back of Pegasus," replied Eus- 
tace, laughing. “Don’t you think that I suc- 
ceeded pretty well in catching that wonderful 
pony?” 

“It was so like one of your mad-cap pranks!” 
cried Primrose, clapping her hands. “I think 
I see you now on his back, two miles high and 
with your head downward ! It is well that you 
have not really an opportunity of trying your 
horsemanship on any wilder steed than our 
sober Davy or Old Hundred.” 

“For my part, I wish I had Pegasus here at 
this moment,” said the student. “I would 
mount him forthwith, and gallop about the 
country within a circumference of a few miles, 
making literary calls on my brother- authors. 
Dr. Dewey would be within my reach at the 
foot of Taconic. In Stockbridge 3 T onder is Mr. 
James, conspicuous to all the world on his 
mountain-pile of history and romance. Long- 
fellow, I believe, is not yet at the Ox-bow, else 
the winged horse would neigh at the sight of 
him. But here in Lenox I should find our most 
truthful novelist, who has made the scenery 


256 


A WONDER BOOK. 


and life of Berkshire all her own. On the 
hither side of Pittsfield sits Herman Melville, 
shaping out the gigantic conception of his 
‘White Whale,’ while the gigantic shape of 
Graylock looms upon him from his study- win- 
dow. Another bound of my flying steed would 
bring me to the door of Holmes, whom I men- 
tion last because Pegasus would certainly 
unseat me the next minute and claim the poet 
as his rider. ’ ’ 

“Have we not an author for our next neigh- 
bor?” asked Primrose — “that silent man who 
lives in the old red house near Tanglewood 
Avenue, and whom we sometimes meet, with 
two children at his side, in the woods or at the 
lake. I think I have heard of his having 
written a poem or a romance or an arithmetic 
or a school history or some other kind of a 
book.” 

“Hush, Primrose, hush! ’’exclaimed Eustace 
in a thrilling whisper, and putting his finger 
on his lip. “Not a word about that man, 
even on a hilltop ! If our babble was to reach 
his ears and happen not to please him, he has 
but to fling a quire or two of paper into the 
stove, and you, Primrose, and I, and Peri- 
winkle, Sweet Fern, Squash-blossom, Blue 
Eye, Huckleberry, Clover, Cowslip, Plantain, 


A WONDER BOOK. 


257 


Milkweed, Dandelion, and Buttercup — yes, and 
wise Mr. Pringle with his unfavorable criti- 
cisms on my legends, and poor Mrs. Pringle 
too — would all turn to smoke and go whisking 
up the funnel ! Our neighbor in the red house 
is a harmless sort of person enough, for aught 
I know, as concerns the rest of the world, but 
something whispers to me that he has a terrible 
power over ourselves, extending to nothing 
short of annihilation.” 

“And would Tangle wood turn to smoke as 
well as we?” asked Periwinkle, quite appalled 
at the threatened destruction. “And what 
would become of Ben and Bruin?” 

“Tangle wood would remain, ’’replied the stu- 
dent, “looking just as it does now, but occupied 
by an entirely different family. And Ben and 
Bruin would be still alive, and would make 
themselves very comfortable with the bones 
from the dinner- table, without ever thinking 
of the good times which they and we have had 
together. ” 

“What nonsense you are talking!” exclaimed 
Primrose. 

With idle chat of this kind the party had 
already begun to descend the hill, and were 
now within the shadow of the woods. Prim- 
rose gathered some mountain-laurel, the leaf 

17 Wonder Book 


258 


A WONDER BOOK. 


of which, though of last year’s growth, was 
still as verdant and elastic as if the frost and 
thaw had not alternately tried their force upon 
its texture. Of these twigs of laurel she 
twined a wreath and took off the student’s cap 
in order to place it on his brow. 

“Nobody else is likely to crown you for your 
stories,” observed saucy Primrose; “so take 
this from me.” 

“Do not be too sure,” answered Eustace, 
looking really like a youthful poet with the 
laurel among his glossy curls, “that I shall not 
win other wreaths by these wonderful and 
admirable stories. I mean to spend all my 
leisure during the rest of the vacation and 
throughout the summer term at college in 
writing them out for the press. Mr. J. T. 
Fields (with whom I became acquainted when 
he was in Berkshire last summer, and who is a 
poet as well as a publisher) will see their 
uncommon merit at a glance. He will get 
them illustrated, I hope, by Billings, and will 
bring them before the world under the very 
best of auspices, through the eminent house of 
Ticknor & Co. In about five months from this 
moment I make no doubt of being reckoned 
among the lights of the age. ’ ' 


A WONDER BOOK. 


259 


“Poor boy!” said Primrose, half aside. 
“What a disappointment awaits him!” 

Descending a little lower, Bruin began to 
bark, and was answered by the graver bow-bow 
of the respectable Ben. They soon saw the 
good old dog keeping careful watch over Dan- 
delion, Sweet Fern, Cowslip, and Squash-blos- 
som. These little people, quite recovered from 
their fatigue, had set about gathering check- 
erberries, and now came clambering to meet 
their play-fellows. Thus reunited, the whole 
party went down through Luther Butler’s 
orchard, and made the best of their way home 
to Tanglewood. 


THE END. 


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131. Sign of the Four Doyle 

132. Sketch Book Irving 

133. Stickit Minister Crockett 

140. Tales from Shakespeare 

C. and Mary Lamb 

141. Tanglewood Tales. . Hawthorne 

142. True and Beautiful. .. .Ruskin 

143. Three Men in a Boat. .Jerome 

144. Through the Looking Glass 

Carroll 

145. Treasure Island Stevenson 

146. Twice Told Tales. .Hawthorne 

150. Uncle Tom’s Cabin Stowe- 

154. Vicar of Wakefield. .Goldsmith 

158. Whittier’s Poems. .. .Whittier 

159. Wide, Wide World ....Warner 

160. Window in Thrums Barrie 

161. Wonder Book Hawthorne 


W. B. Odkkey Boidphry’s Pdbligbtiohs 

COMPLETE LIST OF THE POETIC AND PROSE 

WORKS OF 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox 


POEMS OF PASSION. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. Presentation 
Edition — white vellum, gold top, $1.50. Presentation 
Edition — half calf, gold top, $2.50. 

POEMS OF PASSION. Quarto, cloth. Illustrated 
Edition, $1.50. 

POEMS OF PASSION. Pocket Edition, Illustrated — 16mo, 
cloth, 75 cents; full morocco, gold edges, $2.50. 

Human nature is less of a mystery after the reading of this book. 
“Only a woman of genius could produce such a remarkable 
work ."—Illustrated London News. 

MAURINE AND OTHER POEMS. 12mo. cloth, $1.00. 
Presentation Edition— white vellum, gold top, $1.50. 
Presentation Edition — half calf, gold top, $2.50. 
Beautiful thoughts and healthy inspiration in every line. 
“Maurine is an ideal poem about a perfect woman.”— The Sout h. 

POEMS OF PLEASURE. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. Presenta- 
tion Edition — white vellum, gold top, $1.50. Presenta- 
tion Edition — half calf, gold top, $2.50. 

These poems make life doubly sweet and cheerful. 

“Mrs. Wilcox is an artist with a touch that reminds one of 
Lord Byron’s impassionate strains.”— Paris Register. 

THREE WOMEN. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. Presentation 
Edition — art binding, gold top, boxed, $1.50. 

Her latest and greatest poem. This marvelous narrative of 
thrilling interest depicts the lives of three good and beautiful 
women in every phase of weakness , passion, pride , love , sympathy 
and tenderness. 

AN AMBITIOUS MAN. (Prose.) 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 

“Vivid realism stands forth from every page of this fascinating 
book.”— Every Day. 


WORKS OF ELLA WHEELER WILCOX (Continued) 

HOW SALVATOR WON AND OTHER POEMS. 12mo, 
cloth, $1.00. Presentation Edition — white vellum, gold 
top, $1.50. Presentation Edition— half calf, gold top, 
$2.50. 

A choice collection of recitations, specially compiled for read- 
ers and impersonators. 

“Her name is a household word. Her great power lies in depict- 
ing human emotions ; and in handling that grandest of all passions 
— love — she wields the pen of a master.” — The Saturday Record. 

CUSTER AND OTHER POEMS. Handsomely illustrated. 
12mo, cloth, $1.00. Presentation Edition — white vellum, 
gold top, $1.50. Presentation Edition— half calf, gold 
top, $2.50. 

A grand epic of the exploits and massacre of the immortal 
Custer. 

“One cannot help gaining new impetus for the spiritual exist- 
ence from coming in contact, mentally, with such ideal sentiments 
and emotions as this rarely gifted poetess voices in magnificent 
verse. ’ ’ — Universal Truth. 

AN ERRING WOMAN’S LOVE. 12mo, cloth. $1.00. 
Presentation Edition — white vellum, gold top, $1.50. 
Presentation Edition — half calf, gold top, $2.50. 

“Power and pathos characterize this magnificent poem. A 
deep understanding of life and an intense sympathy are beauti- 
fully expressed.”— Tribune. 

MEN, WOMEN AND EMOTIONS. (Prose.) 12m*, heavy 
enameled paper cover, 50 cents ; English cloth, $1.00. 

A skillful analysis of social habits, customs and follies. 

“Her fame has reached all parts of the world, and her popular- 
ity seems to grow with each succeeding year.”— American Newsman. 

THE BEAUTIFUL LAND OF NOD. (Poems, songs and 
stories.) With over sixty original illustrations. Quarto, 
cloth, $1.00. 

The delight of the nursery. A charming mother’s book. 

“The foremost baby's book of the world.”— New Orleans 
Picayune. 

PRESENTATION SETS. Poems of Passion, Maurine, 
Poems of Pleasure, How Salvator Won. and Custer, are 
supplied in sets of 3, 4, or 5 titles, as may be desired, in 
neat boxes, without extra charge. 

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX’S WORKS are for sale by leading book- 
sellers everywhere, or will be sent postpaid on receipt of price by 
the Publishers. 

W. B. CONKEY COMPANY, Chicago 

















































































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